ssystem

Langue: en

Version: August 2006 (debian - 07/07/09)

Section: 1 (Commandes utilisateur)

Sommaire

NAME

ssystem - solar system simulator

SYNOPSIS

ssystem [ -bench ] [ -slices N ] [ -stacks N ]

DESCRIPTION

This document describes the Debian installation of ssystem. ssystem is an OpenGL Solar System simulator. Only the Sun , the nine planets and a few major satellites are included. Background stars are also included.

Although ssystem is not 100% accurate the author tried to keep it as close to reality as possible. Starting with version 1.1 all planets' data except planets' radii, which are scaled up for easier visualization, should be correct (within the accuracy limit of the new planet positioning algorithm, see positions.c for details).

OPTIONS

Ssystem takes the following command line options.
-bench
Aborts program execution after 1000 frames, displaying frame rate.
-slices
Sets sphere SLICES parameter to N
-stacks
Sets sphere STACKS parameter to N

These two last options (slices and stacks) have a great performance impact (see Performance section)

PERFORMANCE

Hardware acceleration is not required, but highly recommended for high frame rates. I get 48fps (running on Linux) with the "-bench" command line option in my Pentium 233 (overclocked to 266). The Planets' Sphere detail (SLICES and STACKS) is the key factor in performance, increase them if your CPU is powerful enough (I get over 110fps with both set to 2).

Default value for SLICES and STACKS is 12 but you can play with these values on the command line (see Command line options section). Depending on your system you may start with the following values:

                                        SLICES          STACKS

        Pentium 60 and below             8              6

        Pentium 100-166                  10              10

        Pentium 200-266                  12              12

        Pentium II 233                   16              14

        Pentium II 300                   20              18

KEYBOARD BINDINGS:

Home/End
Select previous/next body.
h
Online help
a
Atmosphere on/off
t
Texture on/off
l
Lighting on/off.
f
Flat/Smooth shading model.
r
Real time on/off
s
Stars on/off.
S
Screenshot (in JPEG format)
m/M
Increase/Decrease star brightness
d
Demo mode on/off (step to next body every 10 sec)
n
Moves camera near current planet.
c
Next camera mode.
o/O
Wider/Narrower FOV
p
Pause
b
Distant body labels on/off
B
Star labels on/off
i
Info (HUD) on/off
j
Joystick control on/off
Page Up/Down
Increase/decrease speed
z/Z
Increase/decrease zoom factor (only available in B2B and orbiter camera modes)

Hold SHIFT for faster operation in the following key bindings:

+/-: Increase/Decrease time factor.

Arrow keys: Rotate camera.

Page Up/Down: Increase/decrease speed.

Camera Modes

Linked

This is the default mode. Camera follows the selected body. 'n' is very useful in this mode. Arrow keys are useless. You can move the camera towards the planet by increasing speed. Once you're near the planet program sets camera speed to zero.
Body to Body
View body X as seen from body Y.
Orbiter
Camera moves around the select body in a circular orbit (completes an orbit in 0.5 local days). Try the zoom key 'z' in this mode.
Free Camera
You control the camera with arrow keys/joystick/mouse. In this mode Arrow keys rotate camera, Page Up/Down increase/decrease camera speed.

Camera speed is limited to 10000 Km/iteration (1 iteration = 1 frame), which is light speed at 30 frames/sec.

FILES

/usr/share/doc/ssystem Documentation files
/usr/share/ssystem Data files.
/etc/ssystem.conf Configuration file

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

-Brian Paul (Mesa)

http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~brianp/MesQ.html

-Daryll Strauss (Linux Glide)

-David Bucciarelli (Mesa 3dfx driver)

http://www-hmw.caribel.pisa.it/fxmesa/index.shtml

-Curtis L. Olson (star catalog stuff)

-This software is based in part on the work of The Independent JPEG Group

-Galilean and Saturn satellites computed using code extracted with permission from XEphem, (c) 1997 Elwood Charles Downey

http://iraf.noao.edu/~ecdowney/xephem.html

-Keith Burnett's planet positioning algorithm used with permission.

http://www.xylem.demon.co.uk/kepler/

-Nacho (beta testing)

-And of course, thanks to all of you who help me with suggestions and tips.

Check ssystem homepage for updates (http://www1.las.es/~amil/ssystem).

AUTHOR

Raul Alonso <amil@las.es>
This man page created from documents written by the author of ssystem by John Lapeyre <lapeyre@physics.arizona.edu>

BUGS

Outer bodies movement is a bit jerky. Although ssystem uses double precision floating point arithmetic, Mesa uses simple precision arithmetic internally (faster and precise enough for most applications). I'm working on it.