Projects/Edu/KStars/JuniorJobs - Revision history

Akarshsimha at 21:03, 17 October 2010

2010-10-17T21:03:44Z

Tampakrap at 21:59, 22 August 2009

2009-08-22T21:59:56Z

Tampakrap at 09:15, 7 June 2009

2009-06-07T09:15:36Z

Tampakrap at 06:25, 3 April 2009

2009-04-03T06:25:18Z

Tampakrap at 06:18, 3 April 2009

2009-04-03T06:18:59Z

Akarshsimha at 18:43, 23 March 2009

2009-03-23T18:43:49Z

Akarshsimha: New page: == What this page is about == This page is intended to list out some small jobs that, if completed, would help KStars become better and more usable. There are both easy ones and hard ones...

2009-03-23T18:42:57Z

New page: == What this page is about == This page is intended to list out some small jobs that, if completed, would help KStars become better and more usable. There are both easy ones and hard ones...

New page

== What this page is about ==

This page is intended to list out some small jobs that, if completed, would help KStars become better and more usable. There are both easy ones and hard ones.

If you are interested in contributing to KStars, but don't know where to start, this is probably the best place.

== Keeping track of Development ==

The best way to keep track of Development in KStars is to use the mailing list: kstars-devel@kde.org
See [https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kstars-devel The List Information Page] to subscribe.

If you prefer IRC, we hang out on #kde-edu on irc.freenode.org

We keep track of bugs and wishlists on [https://bugs.kde.org The KDE bugzilla]

Please do not hesitate to ask if you need help with contributing! We're always looking out for contributors and will be happy to help you out.

== The Tasks ==

=== 1. Complete the Sky Calendar ===

There's an unfinished tool out there in Tools -> Sky Calendar, that looks like just a bunch of curved lines strewn over some weird shaped region with a bunch of months labeled. As you can clearly see, that tool requires labels for those lines and a lot of love. Here's [http://websvn.kde.org/trunk/KDE/kdeedu/kstars/kstars/tools/skycalendar.cpp?revision=837021&view=markup the commit that started the tool] which describes the author's vision for the tool. It's now unmaintained, and it would be nice if someone could add those labels that those lines really deserve and make this tool a complete usable thing.

=== 2. Debug the Conjunction tool ===

The Conjunction tool, for some reason, doesn't seem to be predicting solar eclipses correctly. There are some bugs on our bugzilla related to this as well. It would be useful if the Conjunction tool were made completely bug-free

=== 3. Fix the angular distance ruler crash ===

There's an irritating crash condition on our bugzilla where trying to measure angular distances hangs KStars under some conditions. The backtrace is right there. It will be useful if this is fixed.

=== 4. Fix all those translation bugs ===

Now, this is a big task.

SkyObject classes (see skyobject.h under kstars/skyobjects) should have some standard way of storing names. Currently, some SkyObjects store untranslated names and some store translated names, leading to a big mess. SkyObject should probably store untranslated name strings internally, and return untranslated names upon calling name(). The objectNames() hashes should ideally have untranslated names as well.

So how do we find by translated name? The best way, probably is to have a
"reverse translation hash". Since very few objects have translated names, it might be easy to maintain a global hash of translated names vs. untranslated names in some convenient place (probably as a static member of SkyComposite) and do searches for translated names through this.

Implementing this will fix a whole lot of translation-related bugs that are on our bugzilla, and make life for people who use localized versions easier.

=== 5. Generalize JupiterMoons, SaturnMoons ===

This was originally a GSoC idea, but I thought it was a bit too "small" for a whole summer. The idea is to implement a class that handles moons of planets in the solar system in KStars.

Currently, we have JupiterMoons and SaturnMoons (thanks, Vipul!) classes. What should be done now, is to pack all the machinery that goes into these two classes into one generic class (probably called 'SolarSystemMoons'), various instances of which, could represent the moons of Jupiter, Saturn, Mars...

All our class would need to do, to assume the form of say, JupiterMoons, would be to read off data corresponding to JupiterMoons from some file, say "solarsystemmoons.dat"!

Now, the next question...

=== 6. Generalize the Jupiter's Moons Tool ===

See Tools -> Jupiter's Moons. What if I could do this in general with SolarSystemMoons? [See earlier task for details]

=== 7. Comets that looks like comets! ===

Comets in KStars are currently drawn as dull green circles (at least in the default color scheme). That's not what they look like, in reality!

The machinery required to estimate nucleus and coma sizes, and tail lengths of comets are all there in KSComet and KSPlanetBase. What needs to be done, is to provide a proper representation of a comet based on these data on the Sky Map.

Remember that a comet's tail points away from the Sun! You can use this to fix the direction of the tail - so you have all information required to draw the comet.

Re-implement CometsComponent::draw() to draw better comets.

And...
=== 8. Fix those inconsistencies with comets ===

Jeamy Lee, a KStars user and contributor, notices that our Sun-Comet distances are wrong! This makes all calculated parameters come out incorrectly. Find his mail with some details [http://lists.kde.org/?l=kstars-devel&m=123454066010918&w=2 here].

The aim of this task is to compare some more data against other software, step through the code, and find out where we are going wrong. You could use Jeamy's MPC Reader site to download the [http://mpcreader.sourceforge.net/ latest comet elements] in KStars' format.

=== 9. Merge NGC data from the SAC catalog ===
The Saguaro Astronomy Club catalog* is an amazing catalog with a lot of deep-sky objects within the reach of amateur astronomers. It has data for most (all?) of the NGC objects, but not for all IC objects. Our current NGC/IC catalog which you can find in data/ngcic.dat is far from accurate, but has data for all NGC/IC objects. Merging the SAC catalog and KStars' NGC/IC catalog would help a lot of our users.

[*We have obtained permission to use it with KStars]

== Ideas are welcome! ==

If you are a user of KStars and have some cool, simple ideas that would make your experience with KStars better, you are welcome to add them to the list above, or discuss them on the kstars-devel mailing list (or post them as wishlists / bug reports on the bugzilla).

@@ Line 34: / Line 34: @@
 Another possible way to do it is to add functionality to KSMoon, so that we check if the moon is in the shadow of the earth before drawing its image.
-=== Fix the angular distance ruler crash ===
+=== Fix refraction bugs ===
+Because the refraction correction and its inverse are not perfect inverses, there are a whole bunch of problems when refraction corrections are turned on. It would greatly help KStars if this was fixed.
-There's an irritating crash condition on our bugzilla where trying to measure angular distances hangs KStars under some conditions. The backtrace is right there. It will be useful if this is fixed.
 === Fix all those translation bugs ===
@@ Line 49: / Line 48: @@
 Implementing this will fix a whole lot of translation-related bugs that are on our bugzilla, and make life for people who use localized versions easier.
-=== Generalize JupiterMoons, SaturnMoons ===
+=== Generalize JupiterMoons ===
 This was originally a GSoC idea, but I thought it was a bit too "small" for a whole summer. The idea is to implement a class that handles moons of planets in the solar system in KStars.
-Currently, we have JupiterMoons and SaturnMoons (thanks, Vipul!) classes. What should be done now, is to pack all the machinery that goes into these two classes into one generic class (probably called 'SolarSystemMoons'), various instances of which, could represent the moons of Jupiter, Saturn, Mars...
+Currently, we have the JupiterMoons classes. What should be done now, is to pack the machinery that goes into this class into a generic class (probably called 'SolarSystemMoons'), various instances of which, could represent the moons of Jupiter, Saturn, Mars...
 All our class would need to do, to assume the form of say, JupiterMoons, would be to read off data corresponding to JupiterMoons from some file, say "solarsystemmoons.dat"!
@@ Line 73: / Line 72: @@
 Re-implement CometsComponent::draw() to draw better comets.
-Charles Peng has already done a good amount of work to support this feature. It needs some polishing, though.
+Peng "Charles" Chang has already done a good amount of work to support this feature. It needs some polishing, though.
 And...
@@ Line 81: / Line 80: @@
 The aim of this task is to compare some more data against other software, step through the code, and find out where we are going wrong. You could use Jeamy's MPC Reader site to download the [http://mpcreader.sourceforge.net/ latest comet elements] in KStars' format.
 == Ideas are welcome! ==
 If you are a user of KStars and have some cool, simple ideas that would make your experience with KStars better, you are welcome to add them to the list above, or discuss them on the kstars-devel mailing list (or post them as wishlists / bug reports on the bugzilla).

← Older revision		Revision as of 21:59, 22 August 2009
Line 62:		Line 62:

	See Tools -> Jupiter's Moons. What if I could do this in general with SolarSystemMoons? [See earlier task for details]		See Tools -> Jupiter's Moons. What if I could do this in general with SolarSystemMoons? [See earlier task for details]
−
−	~~=== General Relativistic Effects! ===~~
−
−	~~There's a wishlist filed on bugs.kde.org that suggests that KStars must account for the bending of light around the sun, as predicted by General Relativistic calculations.~~
−
−	~~A quick hint is that the deflection in General Relativity is exactly twice what you would get if you assumed that the laws of gravity were Newtonian and the photon behaved like a massive particle.~~
−
−	There seems to be some detail that might be relevant to some extent in a [http://www.newtonphysics.on.ca/ECLIPSE/Eclipse.html paper by Marmet and Couture] that I found off Google. It would be nice if we could correct for all those effects. In any case, it would be nice to work out the result for those who know GR.

	=== Comets that looks like comets! ===		=== Comets that looks like comets! ===

@@ Line 69: / Line 69: @@
 A quick hint is that the deflection in General Relativity is exactly twice what you would get if you assumed that the laws of gravity were Newtonian and the photon behaved like a massive particle.
-There seems to be a rather detailed analysis in a  [http://www.newtonphysics.on.ca/ECLIPSE/Eclipse.html paper by Marmet and Couture] that I found off Google. It would be nice if we could correct for all those effects.
+There seems to be some detail that might be relevant to some extent in a  [http://www.newtonphysics.on.ca/ECLIPSE/Eclipse.html paper by Marmet and Couture] that I found off Google. It would be nice if we could correct for all those effects. In any case, it would be nice to work out the result for those who know GR.
 === Comets that looks like comets! ===

@@ Line 18: / Line 18: @@
 == The Tasks ==
-=== Complete the Sky Calendar ===
+=== Debug the Sky Calendar ===
-There's an unfinished tool out there in Tools -> Sky Calendar, that looks like just a bunch of curved lines strewn over some weird shaped region with a bunch of months labeled. As you can clearly see, that tool requires labels for those lines and a lot of love. Here's [http://websvn.kde.org/trunk/KDE/kdeedu/kstars/kstars/tools/skycalendar.cpp?revision=837021&view=markup the commit that started the tool] which describes the author's vision for the tool. It's now unmaintained, and it would be nice if someone could add those labels that those lines really deserve and make this tool a complete usable thing.
+The Sky Calendar tool lives in the Tools menu of KStars. The tool now has the labels that it needed badly. However, some lines still don't get labelled because the code isn't robust. The tool also fails at high latitudes. It would be helpful if the Sky Calendar was made complete and bug-free.
 === Debug the Conjunction tool ===
 The Conjunction tool, for some reason, doesn't seem to be predicting solar eclipses correctly. There are some bugs on our bugzilla related to this as well. It would be useful if the Conjunction tool were made completely bug-free
 === Fix the angular distance ruler crash ===
@@ Line 49: / Line 57: @@
 All our class would need to do, to assume the form of say, JupiterMoons, would be to read off data corresponding to JupiterMoons from some file, say "solarsystemmoons.dat"!
-Now, the next question...
+Now, the next task...
 === Generalize the Jupiter's Moons Tool ===
 See Tools -> Jupiter's Moons. What if I could do this in general with SolarSystemMoons? [See earlier task for details]
 === Comets that looks like comets! ===

@@ Line 18: / Line 18: @@
 == The Tasks ==
-=== 1. Complete the Sky Calendar ===
+=== Complete the Sky Calendar ===
 There's an unfinished tool out there in Tools -> Sky Calendar, that looks like just a bunch of curved lines strewn over some weird shaped region with a bunch of months labeled. As you can clearly see, that tool requires labels for those lines and a lot of love. Here's [http://websvn.kde.org/trunk/KDE/kdeedu/kstars/kstars/tools/skycalendar.cpp?revision=837021&view=markup the commit that started the tool] which describes the author's vision for the tool. It's now unmaintained, and it would be nice if someone could add those labels that those lines really deserve and make this tool a complete usable thing.
-=== 2. Debug the Conjunction tool ===
+=== Debug the Conjunction tool ===
 The Conjunction tool, for some reason, doesn't seem to be predicting solar eclipses correctly. There are some bugs on our bugzilla related to this as well. It would be useful if the Conjunction tool were made completely bug-free
-=== 3. Fix the angular distance ruler crash ===
+=== Fix the angular distance ruler crash ===
 There's an irritating crash condition on our bugzilla where trying to measure angular distances hangs KStars under some conditions. The backtrace is right there. It will be useful if this is fixed.
-=== 4. Fix all those translation bugs ===
+=== Fix all those translation bugs ===
 Now, this is a big task.
@@ Line 41: / Line 41: @@
 Implementing this will fix a whole lot of translation-related bugs that are on our bugzilla, and make life for people who use localized versions easier.
-=== 5. Generalize JupiterMoons, SaturnMoons ===
+=== Generalize JupiterMoons, SaturnMoons ===
 This was originally a GSoC idea, but I thought it was a bit too "small" for a whole summer. The idea is to implement a class that handles moons of planets in the solar system in KStars.
@@ Line 51: / Line 51: @@
 Now, the next question...
-=== 6. Generalize the Jupiter's Moons Tool ===
+=== Generalize the Jupiter's Moons Tool ===
 See Tools -> Jupiter's Moons. What if I could do this in general with SolarSystemMoons? [See earlier task for details]
-=== 7. Comets that looks like comets! ===
+=== Comets that looks like comets! ===
 Comets in KStars are currently drawn as dull green circles (at least in the default color scheme). That's not what they look like, in reality!
@@ Line 66: / Line 66: @@
 And...
-=== 8. Fix those inconsistencies with comets ===
+=== Fix those inconsistencies with comets ===
 Jeamy Lee, a KStars user and contributor, notices that our Sun-Comet distances are wrong! This makes all calculated parameters come out incorrectly. Find his mail with some details [http://lists.kde.org/?l=kstars-devel&m=123454066010918&w=2 here].
@@ Line 72: / Line 72: @@
 The aim of this task is to compare some more data against other software, step through the code, and find out where we are going wrong. You could use Jeamy's MPC Reader site to download the [http://mpcreader.sourceforge.net/ latest comet elements] in KStars' format.
-=== 9. Merge NGC data from the SAC catalog ===
+=== Merge NGC data from the SAC catalog ===
 The Saguaro Astronomy Club catalog* is an amazing catalog with a lot of deep-sky objects within the reach of amateur astronomers. It has data for most (all?) of the NGC objects, but not for all IC objects. Our current NGC/IC catalog which you can find in data/ngcic.dat is far from accurate, but has data for all NGC/IC objects. Merging the SAC catalog and KStars' NGC/IC catalog would help a lot of our users.