Gaia Sky 3.3.0

By tsagrista on 11 Nov 2022

📢 Gaia Sky 3.3.0 available now!

Code Refactoring

  • the largest change in this version by far is the complete refactoring of the internal model. We have moved from an object-oriented inheritance hierarchy to an entity component system (ECS).
  • move render lists to Java collections.
  • flatten object hierarchy by removing some classes, merging their functionality upwards.
  • abstract attitude loading system, remove Gaia class, use heliotropic satellite.
  • add I18nFormatter to reformat i18n files.
  • remove old date formatting infrastructure (desktop, html, mobile) in favor of a direct approach.
  • remove useless number formatting infrastructure.

Features

  • enable minimizing focus info interface.
  • adjust debug interface layout.
  • key bindings file versioning. If the key bindings file starts with the line #v[version], that version is compared to the default one and overwritten when necessary. That makes updating key bindings much easier.
  • recompute UI scale at startup when starting with default config file.
  • add back-buffer scale API call.
  • add back-buffer scale controls to UI.
  • add repository to -v information.
  • rename fisheye post-processing effect and shader to reprojection. Update cubemap projection from fisheye to azimuthal equidistant.
  • add shaders for Lambert equal-area, orthographic and stereographic projections.
  • add re-projection GUI drop-down in preferences window. Add setReprojectionMode() scripting API call.
  • include orthographic projection in panorama mode. Includes both hemispheres on the screen, side by side. Can be cycled through with ctrl+shift+k.
  • Include “orthosphere” panorama mode – orthospherical projection with both hemispheres overlaid to give a view of the celestial sphere from the outside.
  • add new camera mode, orthosphere view, which includes the regular and the cross-eye orthosphere projections.
  • add cross-eye view of the orthographic projection of the celestial sphere
  • add support for KTX and ZKTX textures.
  • change from thread to scheduled task to remove the mode change info pop-up.
  • add mode change pop-up setting to enable or disable showing a pop-up with information when changing modes (panorama, planetarium, stereo, etc.).
  • add GUI button to exit stereo mode.
  • add new object type, ‘cosmic locations’, to mark the positions of interesting areas or regions.
  • enable scene lights for shape objects when static light is off.
  • new model attribute ‘blendMode’, which defaults to ‘alpha’ but can also be set to ‘additive’ to control the object blending.
  • enable gamepad operation in welcome GUI.
  • add zero-point to gamepad configuration.
  • introduce gamepad support for spacecraft mode, remove ‘Gaia scene’ camera mode (can be mimicked with focus mode), refactor input controllers, fix default SDL gamepad mappings file.
  • add several new functions to enable setting the camera state from scripts.
  • add time zone to settings. Time zone can be either UTC, or the system default. Update date dialog year limits, fix time component layout.
  • adapt raymarching effects work with ECS model.
  • light glow effect now works with ECS model.
  • expose post-processor properties as settings in configuration file.
  • save configuration when closing dataset manager window.
  • add popup notice when opening the keyframes window if component ‘others’ is not visible.
  • add full screen bit depth and refresh rate to fully qualify selected full screen modes.
  • improve layout and information of crash window.
  • add notice when there are no datasets.

Bug Fixes

  • disable tessellation on macOS by default.
  • bug in latest version determination in version checker.
  • remove unnecessary spacing in layout of focus info interface.
  • trajectory size determination algorithm not accurate, breaks when adding points close to the origin.
  • add model size attribute to compute solid angle for model objects more accurately.
  • correctly query graphics device for resolution and apply scaling.
  • toggling SSR and motion blur does not update depth state in some shaders.
  • double definitions in shader libraries.
  • render constellation boundaries as closed polygons in order to avoid artifacts.
  • index errors in keybaord in controller GUI.
  • back-buffer scale is now applied correctly (and only once), works with external view.
  • remove angle from zenith from cubemap renderer in planetarium, use shader-based solution.
  • prevent rendering titles if panorama mode is on.
  • initialize position from coordinates object during initialization phase.
  • land at location never returns. #674
  • set foucs with FocusView object type. #671
  • provide a correct index mapping for arbitrary attributes with string values.
  • particle size of interactively loaded point cloud datasets.
  • vertically flip UV coordinates of two-faced billboard to correct texture orientation.
  • regression in billboard group rendering. #663
  • update coordinates in invisible only when present. #662
  • prevent runtime error due to non-invertible matrix in spacecraft entity.
  • diffuse color contribution calculated incorrectly when nLights > 1 in normal shaders.
  • names in star groups can now be localized, fix focus name in panel.
  • translate strings of filters, shapes, datasets and minimap. #403
  • moon orbits are recomputed more often.
  • filters crash with instanced star renderers.
  • modal windows made not collapsible by default.
  • hotkey tooltip backgrounds.
  • jump in Pluto’s orbit due to deviation between full periods.
  • highlight ‘all visible’ setting in quad-based star renderers.
  • frame sequence number synchronized, value updated when opening preferences.
  • use view angle instead of view angle apparent in go to object API call.
  • increase number of vertices of minimap shape renderer, fixes crash in heliosphere minimap.
  • typo in Jupiter English translation file, add meshes to data descriptor file.
  • break link in dataset manager if too long.
  • make sure direction and up vectors are orthogonal in camera transition call.
  • increase size star point buffer when needed.
  • null-check satellite attitude before getting quaternion. #402
  • empty tips may crash Gaia Sky at startup.
  • ‘add scene graph object’ event missing source object. #400
  • remove phase of pi radians in default-model orbital elements.
  • regression with libgdx 1.11.0 that caused vertical tooltips.
  • null-check settings in crash reporter.
  • workaround for libgdx backslash bug in asset manager. Fixes #398
  • hide system cursor correctly with GLFW until libgdx 1.10.1 is released.
  • use minimum width for debug interface to prevent dynamic resizing depending on content.

Build System

  • move repository from Gitlab to Codeberg.
  • update Gitlab references to Codeberg, when possible. Use Codeberg API for version checking.
  • update changelog template repository to Codeberg.
  • remove Gitlab CI file.
  • extract documentation to own project, which is no longer a submodule.
  • upgrade to libgdx 1.11.0 and LWJGL 3.3.1 — this adds M1 Mac support.
  • add aarch64 JRE to macOS bundle for M1 machines. Move to macOS single bundle archive from deprecated old single bundle.
  • force safe graphics mode on M1 macOS.
  • use default GC (G1) in favor of Shenandoah (only LTS).
  • upgrade gradle wrapper version to 7.5.1.

Documentation

  • update repository pointers to Codeberg.
  • update in-app mastodon reference from cat to social, as it’s in English.
  • remove twitter link, add mastodon hashtag.
  • improve comments on color maps GLSL code.
  • add new panorama orthographic projection to API Javadocs.
  • remove wrong license (leftover from old copy-paste) in fisheye fragment shader code.
  • add contributor.
  • typos and so.

Style

  • mend variable names in about window to follow camel case.
  • fix linter stylistic warnings in GUI and interfaces.

You can get this release in our repository.

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