Visuals for Generalized ADCS

[nscheuer]

We or the community will decide on whether to use a visualization software based fully in Python (e.g. panda3d) or whether external languages should be allowed for the visualization (e.g. godot).

Nevertheless, both implementations should have the following features.

Organization and Files

• The visualization/animation code should be located in ADCS/helpers/animations
• Textures should not be shipped with the repo or PyPI wheel, put them in .gitignore
• Textures should not be auto-downloaded, rather they should prompt the user to download, ideally using the existing AssetManager
• No tests should require a graphical user interface or the downloading of graphics
• 3D files, such as for satellites, should be in .glb format

Visualization

• The camera shall be centered on the satellite
• There shall be a simulation time, which corresponds to the position of the satellite and celestial bodies
• The simulation should be able to be played, stopped, the speed changed, and the time reset to the start of the satellite simulation
• The animation time should be displayed in UTC
• The satellite position and attitude in space should be faithfully recreated
• The position and rotation of the planets should be accurate to the given simulation time
• The planet lighting should be according to the relative positions of planets and Sun
• For the Earth, night-time lighting should be applied to the shadow side
• The camera should be movable using mouse click and drag
• The camera should be zoomable using the scroll wheel, from satellite scale to solar system scale
• LOD (Level of Detail) should be used for the planetary bodies and Sun
• Labels with names of the satellites/planets/sun should be visible when the object is smaller than 1 pixel
• The camera should be recenterable on celestial bodies. To do this, a small menu should open when clicking on a celestial body/satellite, which has the option "Focus on Object"

Screen

• The screen shall consist of two areas, a top visual area, and a bottom timeline area
• The visual top left should contain a text FOCUS: with the celestial body/satellite named after it
• The visual top right should contain a settings menu, including graphics settings and visualization settings
• Visualization settings includes showing/removing state vectors, and other visualizations, including but not limited to:
• • Satellite coordinate system, Satellite principal axes, inertia matrix visualization, boresight vector, nadir, direction of travel (along-track), sun vector direction, goal vector
• Graphics settings should contain a low graphics option capable of running on a potato PC
• Default graphic setting should be low graphics

Other effects

• Atmospheric refraction, scattering as according to Nvidia's atmosphere tutorial
• Reflection from satellite surfaces

@iliketocode2 let me know if I missed anything

[iliketocode2]

This looks great to me!

The only other things I can think of based on your demo are:

• Include all planets in our solar system
• Clicking on a planet refocuses the camera to it