Archaeoastronomy and Sketchup II
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construsol, What you say is true, but the existing plugin is written to use 3d Cartesian coordinate information. Only with the equations to change your variables into coordinates values (x,y,z) can it be easily adapted. I am willing to adapt the existing plugin, but not incline to write a new plugin. Sorry.
It's best that I stop posting, and let someone more capable help you.
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Looking at this last diagram of yours, it looks like you want a script that orients a face to be perpendicular to a vector that is pointing towards a star. Is that the correct idea?
The only tricky part is really figuring out how you have your data collected about what that vector is. If it requires math using old calendar dates, you'll need to find that info on how that math is accomplished (maybe you already postefd that?, I have not been following too closely). I think none of us want to learn how to calculate the position of the stars 8,000 years ago. You need to provide that expertise somehow. So if you had a link that explained it all out mathematically and simply (most of us are not serious mathematicians), that would be great.
And lastly, you must have a list of stars and dates you want to examine? Or you plan on entering that in manually? Or something. But you need to figure out how your data is organized and how you can get it into a useable list, that can be read by a computer.
Again, this is all very do-able (I've already written a script that orients a face perpendicular to any given vector called perpendicular faces, for example). Just help us with how to calculate the vectors better, and say how you want to input your data.
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That is the correct idea when you say that what I want is a script that orients a face to be perpendicular to a vector that is pointing towards a star. On the other hand, you don’t have to learn how to calculate the position of the stars thousands of years ago. It would be unfair of me that besides having your invaluable help making a script to expect from you to learn astronomy. I have the list of stars and its coordinates, so I will provide them and I enter them manually in SU. So no complex math, no astronomy, no mathematical expertise from your part, nothing to calculate, even forget all the astronomy theme of the previous post. Just need a script that tells a vector to rotate around blue axis given an angular measure and then raise that vector with another angular measure as I explained with the pictures in my last post, and lastly align the Zaxis of a given plane to the vector.
@chris fullmer said:
Looking at this last diagram of yours, it looks like you want a script that orients a face to be perpendicular to a vector that is pointing towards a star. Is that the correct idea?
The only tricky part is really figuring out how you have your data collected about what that vector is. If it requires math using old calendar dates, you'll need to find that info on how that math is accomplished (maybe you already postefd that?, I have not been following too closely). I think none of us want to learn how to calculate the position of the stars 8,000 years ago. You need to provide that expertise somehow. So if you had a link that explained it all out mathematically and simply (most of us are not serious mathematicians), that would be great.
And lastly, you must have a list of stars and dates you want to examine? Or you plan on entering that in manually? Or something. But you need to figure out how your data is organized and how you can get it into a useable list, that can be read by a computer.
Again, this is all very do-able (I've already written a script that orients a face perpendicular to any given vector called perpendicular faces, for example). Just help us with how to calculate the vectors better, and say how you want to input your data.
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Aha! That can be done, and rather easily (more or less). I won't be able to get to it tonight, but if no one else gets to it, I'll try to do it by early next week.
Chris
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Great!
@chris fullmer said:
Aha! That can be done, and rather easily (more or less). I won't be able to get to it tonight, but if no one else gets to it, I'll try to do it by early next week.
Chris
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@chris fullmer said:
I think none of us want to learn how to calculate the position of the stars 8,000 years ago.
Besides it cannot be done in Ruby. Standard Ruby (and Sketchup Embedded Ruby,) use the included class Time which has an initial date of January 1, 1970 CE(AD). I have tried to set Sketchup dates before this, and the app does not allow it. (In addition, the MAX year is 2037.)* The ShadowInfo['ShadowTime'] attribute takes and returns only Time class. (It actually does not not raise an Exception if you say give it an Integer, but the value will be unchanged.)
This post actually began over at GoogleGroups, and there I posted some info for the requester, that if he wanted to be historically accurate, the plugin would need to ignore Sketchup's built-in Sun positioning and Time keeping.
The plugin would need to keep it's own date and time (with a dialog to set them,) and the Moon (Luna) and Sun (Sol) would be treated as just stars (like all the rest.) In addition, the plugin would need to use the Ruby Extended class Date, which can go back 6723 years MAX, as the initial date is January 1, 4713 BCE (4712 BC, accounting for year 0).- I would think this implies that future versions of software utilizing Ruby should move to using the Date class (and it's DateTime subclass,) sometime in the next 27 years.
I did a bit of checking, I'm looking for calculation software that runs on remote web servers, so a plugin could query that server for a particuler star's RA and DEC, from a specific geolocation and date; rather than do it itself.
I did find some code, at an Italian University but it's written in IPL, and would need to be translated to C or Ruby. I don't know IPL.
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Dan, no astronomy, no calculation, no ancient dates are needed, no RA and DEC anymore. I'm using another coordinate system that uses SU horizontal plane and north. Please read this post:
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=27480&start=15#p238823
I will do all the astronomy, calendar calculations and math. Just need a script that tells a vector to rotate around blue axis given an angular measure and then raise that vector with another angular measure as I explained with the pictures in the post, and lastly align the Zaxis of a given plane to the vector. Thanks Dan and all you people that are investing their time to help.
@dan rathbun said:
@chris fullmer said:
I think none of us want to learn how to calculate the position of the stars 8,000 years ago.
Besides it cannot be done in Ruby. Standard Ruby (and Sketchup Embedded Ruby,) use the included class Time which has an initial date of January 1, 1970 CE(AD). I have tried to set Sketchup dates before this, and the app does not allow it. (In addition, the MAX year is 2037.)* The ShadowInfo['ShadowTime'] attribute takes and returns only Time class. (It actually does not not raise an Exception if you say give it an Integer, but the value will be unchanged.)
This post actually began over at GoogleGroups, and there I posted some info for the requester, that if he wanted to be historically accurate, the plugin would need to ignore Sketchup's built-in Sun positioning and Time keeping.
The plugin would need to keep it's own date and time (with a dialog to set them,) and the Moon (Luna) and Sun (Sol) would be treated as just stars (like all the rest.) In addition, the plugin would need to use the Ruby Extended class Date, which can go back 6723 years MAX, as the initial date is January 1, 4713 BCE (4712 BC, accounting for year 0).- I would think this implies that future versions of software utilizing Ruby should move to using the Date class (and it's DateTime subclass,) sometime in the next 27 years.
I did a bit of checking, I'm looking for calculation software that runs on remote web servers, so a plugin could query that server for a particuler star's RA and DEC, from a specific geolocation and date; rather than do it itself.
I did find some code, at an Italian University but it's written in IPL, and would need to be translated to C or Ruby. I don't know IPL.
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