NAVSYS DEMO PROGRAM Copyright (c) 1996 by Mark Ewell Smith ALL RIGHTS RESERVED LEGAL NOTICE This program and all associated resource files are protected by federal and international copyright laws. Unauthourized distribution, modification or reproduction of any kind is forbidden without written permission of the copyright holder. 1) Users are granted the right to use this program for their own personal use. 2) Users are NOT permitted to use this program in any "for-profit" venture. 3) Users may make and distribute as many copies of this program as they like provided that: a) no fee is charged for the program above and beyond costs incurred as the result of reasonable transportation or transmission. b) all copyright and legal notices (including this one) remain intact. c) the program is not modified in any way whatsoever including but not limited to the inclusion or replacement of additional copyright or legal information, the extension of functionality or the inclusion of any virus or other potentially harmful computer program. d) the program is distributed in exactly the same form as is found in the original distribution packet. 4) The authour makes no claims of any kind as to the suitability or reliability of the program for any purpose whatsoever. The authour does not guarantee that this program will operate on any particular type of computer or operating environment. The program is provided "as is" and all responsibility for its use lies with the user. 5) The authour shall not be held responsible for any loss of data, moneys or any damages whatsoever which may occur as a result of using this program. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS IBM-compatible PC system 80486 or better processor VGA colour display subsystem MS-DOS 6.1 or greater 640K of RAM (approximately 550K available at runtime) Approximately 5MB of hard drive space SMARTDRV or other disk caching software is recommended but not required A mouse driver (optional) INSTALLATION 1) Unzip the program into a new directory (e.g. - C:\G3DEMO). 2) (optional) Set up disk caching software and configure for 2MB of DOS caching. 3) (optional) Load the mouse driver. 4) Move to the new directory (e.g. - CD C:\G3DEMO). 5) Type NAVSYS and press . USING THE PROGRAM Please understand that this is a dramatically crippled version of one part of one subsystem in a much larger program. I am providing this limited- capability application to satisfy the many requests I have had over the past few weeks for copies. In short, the program doesn't do much. It just sort of sits there and looks pretty. The engine I have provided is not optimized, so please be patient: the program can be a little slow. NAVIGATION SYSTEM MENU There are three options available from this menu, but only one is active in this demo. Press the STAR ATLAS button to begin. STAR ATLAS The system will immediately begin plotting the stars in the current selection set. The program comes loaded with a version of the Gliese 3.0 catalogue which contains all stars within a 25 parsec range of Earth. This is about 3800 stars. Users may stop the plot at any time by pressing any key. There are three options available from this menu: VIEW PARAMS allows users to set the viewing angles, focus and detail level of the data displayed. All data on this screen can be changed. X FOCUS, Y FOCUS, Z FOCUS fields indicate the current viewing focal point. The coordinate system origin for this data set is on Sol, so these values represent an offset from that origin in parsecs. Note that the focal point is not the same as the centre point. The centre point is the centre of the data set and is established in the SELECT SYSTEM operation. X ROTATION, Y ROTATION, Z ROTATION fields indicate the rotation of the data set along each axis. Rotation is based on the current centre. SCALE refers to the magnification factor used to view the atlas. Since the data set shows stars within a 25 parsec radius and the screen is far bigger than 50 pixels, this factor is used to scale up and down the data for easier viewing. MIN LUM, MAX LUM fields are used to filter out stars which fall beyond a certain luminisity range. If a star falls within these values, a full set of data, including star name, course, distance and estimated transit time from the current centre are provided. If a star does not fall within this range, it is shown without embellishment as a dot or a circle depending on the brightness of the star. RANGE is used to set the range from centre of the selection set. Only stars which fall within the given range are plotted. The range value also controls the size of the orientation sphere around the data set. VELOCITY is used to adjust the estimated transit time values for all plotted stars. Velocity in this demo is measured in warp factors according to the equation: velocity^(3.3/((1-(velocity^21.1/10^21.1))^(1/21.1))) SELECT SYSTEM allows users to select a new system as the centre, refocus the view on a particular system, view data with regard to a specific system, and view a list of all the stars in the database by either star name or range from the current centre point. The row of buttons across the top of the star system list is used to navigate through the list. The buttons correspond to the cursor keys on the keyboard. Additionally, the ALT-S key will bring up a search window which will allow users to look for a particular star system by name, assuming the sort order is set up for name. To select sort orders, press either they NAME SORT or RANGE SORT buttons at the bottom of the list. EDIT STAR SYSTEM displays the star system form. Users are not permitted to change any values. CENTRE re-centres the display set on the currently highlighted star system. Depending on the speed of the machine, this may take some time. Please be patient. FOCUS re-focuses the viewing focus on the currently highlighted star system. If the star system is outside the range and data set parametres, it will not be displayed, but the focus will change never the less. PLOT COURSE is provided as a demonstration of how part of the navigation system will work in the larger application. It plots a multi-segment course between several stars. MORE INFORMATION I wrote this program in a language I designed called SVOCS. If you would like to know more about the language, its capabilities, potential applications, etc. please feel free to contact me at: 75530.425@compuserve.com vladbathory@concentric.net Enjoy!