celestia/ChangeLog

Celestia Revision History
-------------------------

1.00
* Initial public release


1.01
* Added more realistic and aesthetically pleasing ring illumination function
* Made planets project shadows onto their rings (requires multitexturing)
* Detect and use ARB_multitexture extension
* Some configuration parameters now read from a file
* Support for multiple solar system catalog files
* Split solar system files into solarsys.ssc and extrasolar.ssc
* Added Help/License menu
* Added simple camera orbit mode
* Fixed up parsing and printing of catalog numbers--still kludgy though


1.02
* Made Celestia icon appear in corner of window.  Whee.
* Fixed an extremely subtle numerical precision bug which manifested itself in
  a number of ways:  jittering when following small objects, incorrect
  targeting of small objects with goto, occasional flashes when closely
  approaching an object, and probably other things as well.
* Reversed rotation directions when orbiting--it's much more intuitive now
* Added an exponential dolly capability to the camera
* Double-clicking will now center on the selected object
* Fixed bug in elliptical orbit calculation
* When orbits are displayed, the Orbit for the selected object is highlighted
* Incorporated Scott Hudson's asteroid geometry data for Toutatis, Kleopatra,
  and Geographos.
* Fixed problems with disappearing labels and with misplaced labels for
  extrasolar planets
* Eliminated 'sticking' when mouse buttons released outside of Celestia window
* Added Real Time option to Time menu
* Reversed planet rotation direction so it's correct.  Oops.
* Added about a dozen extrasolar systems from Jean Schneider's catalog
* Create two new textures for extrasolar planets
* Moved Selection class outside of Simulation, as it's generally useful


1.03
* Rotating the camera is now more responsive to mouse movement
* 'Infinite mouse' hack allows rotating and dollying without having to pick up
  the mouse and reposition the cursor in the window
* Fixed z ordering for planets and satellites so small that they only appear
  as points.  Small satellites will no longer get obscured by planets they're
  in front of.
* Apparent magnitude calculation for planets now takes into account phase
* At close range, stars are now rendered as textured sphere meshes.
* Choosing stars by catalog number no longer selects a star even when the specified
  star doesn't exist.
* Added labels for stars; the list of labelled stars is read from celestia.cfg
* Cleaned up vecmath.h, added consts and reference parameters where appropriate
* Cleaned up StarNameDatabase


1.04
* Start out at the moon instead of in deep space
* Made picking of planets work properly for planets with disc sizes greater than one
  pixel.
* Added call to glDeleteTextures to Texture class destructor
* Added bump mapping.  Uses DOT3 bump mapping and only works on GeForce cards
  right now.
* Enabled user control of per-pixel lighting.
* Menu checked state for label options synced with renderer state.
* Added a context menu that appears when an object is right clicked.
* Celestia now uses texture coordinates from 3DS files
* Added 3DS model of Eros based on NEAR laser rangefinder data
* Added 3DS models of Deimos, Phobos, and numerous other asteroids and
  small moons based on Phil Stooke's models
* Replaced TriangleList class with much more flexible VertexList
* Introduced support for compressed textures; texture compression is specified
  on a per texture basis in .ssc files.
* Added a reverse time option
* Added an OpenGL Driver Info item to the help menu


1.05
* Made per-pixel lighting work for planets without bump maps too
* Allow user control of magnitude of faintest visible stars
* Added support for PNG textures
* Improved console: enabled backspace, relocated text entry, code cleanup, ...
* Corrected star positions by converting them from equatorial to ecliptical
  coordinates.
* Eliminated case sensitivity when selecting objects by name
* New ring texture for Saturn with separate reflectance and opacity
* Ring textures now specified in .ssc files instead of hardcoded
* Implemented date/time selector dialog box
* Changed the mouse wheel function from zoom to dolly.  Zoom is now controlled by
  shift left-dragging the mouse.  For mice without wheels, control left-dragging
  will dolly.
* Fixed orbit and dolly functions to work in follow mode
* Improved rendering of objects at close range: less clipping, extra sphere LOD.
* Fixed bug that caused irregular objects to be displayed at half their actual size
* ESC now cancels goto and follow instead of exiting app.
* Fixed orbital calculations for planets so their positions are now closer to
  reality.
* Completed extrasolar planets database; it now contains all known planets
  around normal stars
* Mir!
* MeanAnomaly field in .ssc files was incorrectly called TrueAnomaly; this
  is fixed, and solar system parser now also accepts MeanLongitude in orbital
  elements section.
* Epoch can now be specified for orbital elements.  Default is J2000.


1.06
* Made Alt+F4 exit the app.
* Fixed text rendering to be pixel-accurate; labels and console text are now
  crisper and don't have any missing pixels (need to test on more graphics
  chipsets.)
* Updated parser to handle negative numbers.  Big oops.
* Corrected errors and omissions in extrasolar planets catalog.
* Added locations menu for saving and recalling favorite places.
* Added intro message.
* Removed stars without spectral class info from database.
* Included support for cloud maps
* Added extrasolar planets from the ESO's April 4th announcement
* Axial rotation for stars
* Alleviated clipping of very distant stars (Deneb was missing from Earth's
  sky due to this bug.)
* Increased depth buffer precision for planet rendering--this should improve
  the quality of rendering with 16-bit z buffers
* Added option to render constellation diagrams
* Use strips instead of lists for rendering spheres
* Enabled keyboard control of zoom with home and end
* Implemented basics of linear scripting system
* Run a script at startup; the script filename can be set in the config file

Code revisions:
* Converted Simulation class to use Julian days instead of seconds as internal
  time units.
* Eliminated brain damaged observer methods in Simulation
* Cleaned up Console class


1.07
* More corrections to planetary orbital calculations
* Accept LongOfPericenter as well ArgOfPericenter in solar system catalog files
* Updated parser to accept C-style string escapes
* Render the Milky Way and other galaxies
* Added more constellations
* Display constellation names
* Cleaned up render menu
* Added FPS counter
* Implemented basic WWW info feature for planets and stars
* New script commands: renderflags, labels, orbit
* Implemented a scripted demo mode
* Placed ISS in Earth orbit


1.08
* Initial UNIX port
* Created GLUT based front-end
* Created abstract Timer class with Windows and UNIX implementations


1.09
* UNIX port fixes: eliminated friend templates in Quaternion, added -lm to
  configure.in, added missing return type for methods in Console and Overlay


1.0.10
* Fixed problem with ring shadow texture by setting wrap mode to GL_CLAMP_TO_EDGE
* Corrected scale of ring shadow to match size of planet
* Switched to octree based visibility determinination algorithm for
  stars.  The result is better rendering performance, especially when
  many stars are displayed.  The octree algorithm is also lag free, meaning
  that all star "popping" is eliminated.
* Added setvisibilitylimit command for scripting.
* Fonts now selectable in celestia.cfg
* Added more and fewer visible stars options to render menu
* Fixed BigFix precision bug that appeared only with certain compiler versions.
* UNIX version: Enabled arrow keys and home/end in UNIX version
* UNIX version: Implemented frame rate counter
* UNIX version: Added mouse wheel support
* UNIX version: Fixed bug that caused picking to happen while dragging mouse
* UNIX version: Added more compiler optimization flags to Makefile
* UNIX version: Ctrl-Q now exits program
* UNIX version: Fixed vertically flipped textures
* UNIX version: Initial Gtk+ version, with rudimentary GUI


1.1.0
* Added RotationPhase field to solar system bodies; tweaking this makes sure
  that the right part of the planet is dark at a given time.
* Changed axial tilt of Earth so that the North Pole is illuminated in summer,
  not winter.
* Added option to render celestial coordinate sphere
* Added geosynchronous follow mode
* Added synchronous command to enable geosynchronous follow mode
* Fixed disappearing stars when modifying field of view
* Fixed bug reading angle in galaxies file
* Made it possible to select an object by 'path' e.g. Sol/Earth/Moon
* Bound { and } keys to control ambient light level
* Windows version: added solar system browser window
* Windows version: added star browser window
* Windows version: separated update from redraw so animation no longer occurs
  when dragging modal dialogs over the view window
* Windows version: made context menus work when running fullscreen

Code:
* Fixed bug in quaternion to matrix conversion; conversion was returning the
  matrix representation of the conjugate.
* Moved common UI code into CelestiaCore


1.1.1
* Added spectral type field to star browser
* Fixed bug that was causing garbled fonts in some cases
* Added missing minus character to default label font
* Many more options for goto--pick a specific long and lat, set coordinate
  frame, choose up vector
* Changed camera rotation interpolation--now use quaternion slerp
* Constrained parallaxes of stars which are components of multistar systems;
  binary stars now actually close to each other and not just when viewed
  from Earth.
* Fixed another stupid sign problem--north celestial pole is now positive,
  not negative y.  This change should be invisible to a user.
* Replaced welcome message with logo texture

Code:
* Moved selection info code from Simulation to CelestiaCore
* Fixed bug in Texture destructor


1.1.2
* Replaced single catalog number with separate entries for HD and HIP numbers
* Expanded star name database and rewrote star name code to be less strict
  when matching names.
* Added track mode
* Changed displayed units of distance and velocity
* Fixed picking of stars so it works properly at close distances
* Fixed bug that caused solar systems not to be displayed when another star
  was nearby (this made it impossible to visit the planets of Gliese 876)
* Fixed inverted bump maps
* Now use exponential interpolation during goto movement.
* New Jupiter texture based on Cassini images
* Added a tour guide feature
* Added more constellation diagrams
* Windows version: save and restore window size settings in registry
* Windows version: added toggle between GMT and local time
* Windows version: added keyboard command mnemonics to menus
* Windows version: InstallShield setup
* Windows version: added controls help dialog
* UNIX version: implemented find object and about dialogs (Gnome/Gtk only)
	
Code:
* Moved star browser and solar system browser code into separate modules
* Fixed DPRINTF macro so it's not broken in g++


1.1.3
* Added city light map for night side of Earth
* Specular reflections for Earth's oceans
* Haze effects for planets and moons with atmospheres
* Optimized star rendering--faster, uses substantially less memory
  when many stars visible
* Changed minimum limiting magnitude from 8.0 to 12.0
* Support for nVidia vertex programs
* Eliminated 'seams' in normalization cube maps used for lighting
* View frustum culling of planets and nearby stars
* Fixed clipping that occurred when close to planets
* Fixed depth buffer precision problems (most apparent with spacecraft)
* Tidied up display of speed, distance, and star/planet statistics.
* Changed how modes work--goto won't break follow and sync follow modes
  any more
* Fixed underlit planets on GL implementations without EXT_rescale_normal
* Type K, M, R, S, and N stars now cast a red tinted light on their planets
* New Earth texture
* Print less debugging spew on startup
* Integrated Colin Walters endianness fixes
* Windows version: info about max texture size and number of simultaneous
  textures added to OpenGL Info dialog.
* New objects: Comet Borrelly, the giant Kuiper Belt object 2001 KX76,
  and the Hubble Space Telescope
	
Code:
* Rewrote texture and model managers
* Cleaned up simulation.cpp to use frames of reference and eliminated a lot
  of special case code for the different 'modes'
* Stopped using the Intel JPEG library on Windows; instead, the Independent
  JPEG Group's library is now used on all platforms.


1.1.4
* Fixed text rendering problems that appeared on Matrox cards
* Windows version: fixed bug that broke web info for stars
* Windows version: improved web info feature so that it doesn't launch a new
  instance of IE every time.
* Added eight new extrasolar planets announced 15 Oct
* Fixed goto command so that it doesn't ever place you inside a planet
* Allow navigation with number pad
* Much greater resolution in planet meshes
* Implemented atmospheric effects
* Modified center so it does not change the frame of reference--will prevent
  suddenly leaving the ground when used on the surface of a planet.
* Changed rendering order so star and constellation labels are obscured by
  planets.
* Corrected satellite obliquities--they should have been relative to their
  planets equatorial plane.
* Eliminated premature clipping of irregular bodies at close range
* Fixed problem with lighting on S3 Savage4
* Fixed clipping bug with fields of view greater than 45 degrees
* Introduced support for custom orbital calculations
* Much more accurate orbital calculations for Earth and Moon; eclipses now
  occur at the correct time.  Also, introduced accurate calculations for
  other solar system planets except Pluto.
* Require solar system catalog files have orbital elements in an
  EllipticalOrbit group.
* Added four more asteroids with models by Scott Hudson: KY26, Castalia,
  Bacchus, and Golevka
* Added keyboard commands to toggle night side lights (Ctrl+L) and
  atmospheres (Ctrl+A)
* Added a 'Goto Object' dialog box, which lets you specify an object name
  and distance, longitude, and latitude.
* Implemented a screen capture feature
* Windows version: added a star browser option to display just those stars
  with planetary systems.
* Windows version: fixed bug in Set Time dialog that wouldn't allow setting
  both the date and the time of day.
* Windows version: added basic joystick support.
* Windows version: fixed 'jumping' that occurred when using Goto or Follow
  from popup menu.
* Windows version: added 'Set to Current Time' button in Set Time dialog
* Windows version: fixed selection of planetary satellites via context menu
* Windows version: made tab, return, and escape work properly in modeless
  dialogs
* Unix version: created installer (Deon Ramsey)

Code:
* Rewrote texture font code; texfont.cpp is gone, everything now in
  texturefont.cpp


1.2.0
* Fixed problem with image capture function that saved skewed images for some
  windows widths.
* Changed field of view display to use minutes and seconds
* Fixed display of time scale when time is reversed
* Fixed jittering labels for stars distant from the sun
* Fixed depth ordering problem that caused satellites to appear in front of
  the horizon when viewed from the surface of Earth
* Made the correct hemisphere of the Moon face Earth
* Fixed Earth's rotation so that sunrise and sunset times are correct
* Fixed picking so that clicking on a distant planet will never select one of
  its satellites.
* Improved orbit calculation code to properly compute eccentric anomaly
* Render orbit outlines behind planets instead of in front of them
* Made it possible for clouds to move relative to the ground
* Eliminated star haloes that were visible in daylight
* Added Uranus's ring system
* Added Shrox's Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey models
* Windows: save rendering and label settings
* Windows: added movie capture feature
* Windows: fixed disappearing mouse cursor bug
* Windows: added slider for controlling number of stars displayed by
  star browser.
* Windows: vastly improved full screen support
* Windows: fixed non-functioning Fewer Stars menu option
* Unix: fixed problems with '--enable-debug' under automake (dramsey)
* Unix: Enhanced autoconfigure to enable automated distribution build, as well
        as building the buildstardb program used to create stars.dat (dramsey)
* Unix: Fixed Problem with --enable-debug=no acting as if --enable-debug=yes
        had been given. (dramsey)
* Unix: Changed --enable-gtk into --with-gtk, and made it automatic if Gtk+ and
        GtkGLArea is present. (dramsey)
* Unix: Inserted testing code for GtkGLArea into configure.in (dramsey)
* Unix: Integrated a current gnome macros package. (dramsey)
* Removed many errors and compiler warnings (dramsey)
* Label Galaxies option. (dramsey)
* Unix Gtk : Added several menu options already present in the windows version.
             (dramsey)
* Unix Gtk : Fixed problem where giving keyboard commands wasn't updating
	     the toggle menu gadgets. (dramsey)
* Unix : Handle timezones correctly. (dramsey)
* Fixed constellation typo: Cyngi -> Cygni
* Much better Data analysis and Correction for the buildstardb program
  leading to better data in stars.dat . Verbosity of the buildstardb program
  may now be controlled by commandline argument. (dramsey)
* Improved solar system catalog file format so it's easier to install add-ons
* Scan extras directory for solar system catalog files
* Fixed pixel shader rendering path so it uses star light color
* Added support for textures in 3DS models
* Fixed locations menu
* Improved locations menu so that position and frame of reference are saved
  and restored.
* Fixed broken script commands: setposition, setorientation, and move
* Display the names of tracked and followed objects
* Windows: replaced proliferating render and label options in menu with
  a single modeless dialog.
* Fixed period and rotation of Phoebe

	
1.2.1
* Unix: configure.in changes to better find OpenGL libraries by Bruckner.
* Added accurate orbital calculations for Galilean satellites.
* Added tolerance parameter for picking to make picking objects in a narrow
  narrow field of view work better.
* New texture for Miranda courtesy of Bruckner.
* Windows: Fixed bug that caused a crash when canceling the view options dialog
* Windows: Fixed crash that occurred when recalling a location with
  no selection

	
1.2.2
* Improved find algorithm for starnames, and combined names from hdnames.dat
  into starnames.dat. Also added several additional names and variant spellings
  from my Star Atlas into starnames.dat (whose format has been completely
  revamped). (dramsey)
* Unix GTK: Got Ctrl-Q to exit the Program properly. (dramsey)
* Unix GTK: Capture Filenames now starts up with a proper filename, remembers
            the last directory, and complains about bad filenames. (dramsey)
* Added 'verbose' option, and supressed most non-error type messages unless
  verbose is set. (dramsey)
* Made picking exact for oblate planets
* Optimized rendering of planet meshes
* Switched to high levels of details when camera is near surface of a planet
* Improved the appearance of the corona around stars