Celestia/Development Road Map

This page is obsolete. For current information, see Ideas for post 1.7 era on GitHub. Here's a development roadmap for Celestia (as of 6/22/07), with tasks roughly prioritized highest first. Celestia 1.5.0pre3 Don't require LuaHook for scripted orbits and rotations Fix cloud shadows ASAP Celestia v1.5.0pre3 for Windows was made available on May 24, 2007. A list of the accumulated changes and the location for downloading the Windows installer are at https://celestiaproject.space/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11082& Celestia 1.5.0pre4 Changes to standard data files: new Eros model new ISS and Mir models new Itokawa model Fix stars Allow star orbits to be toggled separately from planet orbits Eliminate OrbitBarycenter Adjust near clip plane for FOV (to preserve depth buffer precision) Don't show labels for star system barycenters Fix SSC texture override for meshes Celestia v1.5.0pre4 for Windows was made available on October 29, 2007. Not all of the hoped-for improvements were included, but many bugs were fixed. A list of the accumulated changes and the location for downloading the Windows installer are at https://celestiaproject.space/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11605& Celestia 1.5.0pre5 Celestia v1.5.0pre5 for Windows was made available on December 18, 2007. Not all of the hoped-for improvements were included, but many bugs were fixed. A list of the accumulated changes and the location for downloading the Windows installer are at https://celestiaproject.space/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11807 Celestia 1.5.0pre6 Celestia v1.5.0pre6 for Windows was made available on January 21, 2008. Not all of the hoped-for improvements were included, but many bugs were fixed. A list of the accumulated changes and the location for downloading the Windows installer are at https://celestiaproject.space/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11932 Celestia 1.5.0 final Celestia v1.5.0 for Windows and MacOS X, as well as a tarball of its source code, was made available on January 26, 2008. It can be downloaded from SourceForge. Not all of the hoped-for improvements listed below were included, but many bugs were fixed. A list of the accumulated changes is available at https://celestiaproject.space/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11953 Changes to standard data files: Switch to new rotation model forms Atmospheres Make dense atmospheres work better Fix artifacts from linear interpolation across triangles Fix too-dark sky at zenith Automatic conversion of new style atmosphere parameters to old ones Default body frame is based on parent, not center of orbit frame; is this right? Fix depth sorting of labels Celestia 1.5.1 Change of plans: Celestia v1.5.1 will be strictly a bug-fix release, plus translations which were not included in v1.5.0. Features listed below which weren't in v1.5.0 will be included in v1.6.0. Script function to show / hide individual objects Script menu Already completed for 1.5.0 Make quaternion slerp more robust Already completed for 1.5.0 Double precision SampledOrbits Already completed for 1.5.0 Pulsar catalog? Triaxial ellipsoids for solar system bodies Fix multiple star handling in star database builder Bug fixing Celestia v1.5.1 for Windows and MacOS X was made available on May 5, 2008. It can be downloaded from SourceForge. Celestia 1.6.0 For a more up-to-date list of features considered or implemented for Celestia v1.6.0, see the WikiPage Celestia/160Features. User-definable object classes Orbits: More flexible means to choose which orbits to display (custom classes) Allow orbits to be shown in any reference frame Script: Functions to deal with object classes Expose 1.5.0 reference frames in scripts Vector and orientation parameters for ScriptedOrbits and ScriptedRotations Markers: Labeled markers Allow different reference frames for markers Texture improvements: Use lower resolution virtual texture tiles for surface patches farther from camera Improve texture memory management Multi-threaded texture loader Optimize galaxy rendering: point sprites, vertex buffers instead of immediate mode. SPICE Allow lists of kernel files Manage loaded kernels C-kernel rotation model Generic frame rotation model Goto fixes: Fix center orbit (currently assumes infinitely distant target) Goto barycenter should pick a distance based on size of the orbits around the barycenter. SampledOrbit / SampledOrientation: Periodic SampledOrbits Support cubic interpolation of SampledOrientation files New Earth rotation CustomRotations--precession, nutation, IRTF93 Internal changes: Implement velocity method for all orbit types Change internal time scale to be Julian days relative to J2000.0 Use J2000 ecliptic coordinate system throughout Celestia CachingRotation base class More accurate lunar orbit Depth sort location labels (new drawable type: label cluster) New data: Create model for comet Tempel 1 Create model for asteroid (66391) 1999 KW4 and its moon Eliminate the .cms format Celestia v1.6.0 for Windows and MacOS X, as well as a tarball of its source code, was made available on July 9, 2009. It can be downloaded from SourceForge. Celestia 1.7.0 Spacecraft fly mode Network Server Separated Dynamic milky way model Earth, Moon, Saturn Ring Details Support Collada (.dae) Dynamic loading and unloading of add-ons Make add-ons easier to install Multiple names for solar system objects (done) For stars, do antialiased points in shader 3D graphic objects in scripts Reference frames Named frames Rotation offset frames Two-vector frames: closest point vectors Self shadowing for complex objects Address 16k light year limit (done) Supernova catalog? Celestia 2.0 High dynamic range lighting - photorealism Light scattering model for rings Major UI improvements Advance Visual effects