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SkySafari 6 Pro | Rings Of Saturn Appear Broken When Up Close (Answer: App Graphics Not Designed For This Degree Of Detail)

Pierluigi Panunzi

September 08, 2018 16:33

Not planned

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hi!
my personal benchmark for professional Astronomical applications is the satellite Pan, revolving around Saturn rings inside the Enke's Gap. I tested it in SkySafari Plus 6 with my Huawei MediaPad M5 under Android 8.0 Oreo...

if you search it and then choose "Orbit" , from a great distance the view is really wonderful

but approaching the small moon , the rings become a real mess: they appear broken with a curious zig-zag shape

the more you approach the moon, changing the point ov view, things are even worse and rings get broken.

the rings are really a challenge for graphical applications, and unfortunately here they need a thororugh redesign...

Just in the immediate neighborhood of Pan, another issue is the Saturn's terminator, definitely not linear ...

thanks for your attention!

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5 comments

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  Bill Tschumy September 10, 2018 14:29

  The code that draws the ring system was just not designed for such close up renderings.   This is not a new problem but has been like this forever.  Maybe at some point we will be able to address it.

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  Pierluigi Panunzi September 14, 2018 22:46

  I really hope you'll address this problem as soon as possible!!

  thanks a lot for this precious application! 😀

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  Bill Tschumy September 17, 2018 13:45

  This is not something we plan on addressing soon.  The code that draws the ring system was not designed for displaying them when orbiting that close.  Maybe some day, but we have many more things ahead of it in the queue.  Sorry.

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  Pierluigi Panunzi September 17, 2018 21:09

  the same happens for Uranus and its moon Cordelia

  

  it's really a pity that such a wonderful app has such faults...

  as an expert programer I'd like to help you for such a task... is it only a dream? 🤔

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  Bill Tschumy September 18, 2018 14:11

  Yes, the same thing happens because the same algorithm is used.

  You are trying to do something the code was not designed for.  Yes, it is unfortunate and maybe someday we will beef up the drawing code to handle this unusual situation better.