Time Stepper for Skymap Pro
Versions 6, 7 and possibly 8 (not tested)
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| Purpose |
Did you ever want to see the sky turning ? Or wished to lock onto
Jupiter or Saturn and watch the moons move. Or follow a comet in the sky? Then this
small utility may be for you. It is also great use when doing sidewalk
astronomy.
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| Why |
Earlier versions of Skymap had this functionalty built right in. But
it was removed in Skymap Pro 4. I don't know the reason for this, but I
was sad to see it go, since I had a lot of fun with it. And now I am
sufficiently annoyed to do something about it :-)
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| How |
Time Stepper looks for the time toolbar in Skymap Pro and then sends
mouseclicks to the step-buttons on the the toolbar at predefined
intervals. This method is very simple and easy to code. However it poses
some problems - se under "Limitations".
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| Use |
Configure Skymap Pro, so that the time toolbar is visible when the
program loads as shown below.
Use the time toolbar to define the amount of time pr. step. Real time
should be deactivated.
 Start
Time Stepper and set the number of millisecs. between steps. Then press
one of the direction buttons - and time is flying.
How short an update interval you can use, depends on how fast your
processor is and how many data you have set Skymap to display. Generally
the faster the CPU the better. My setup
runs fine with 300 ms intervals when playing mp3-music in the background
(K7-500). If Skymap reacts
sluggishly to mouseclicks, the time display in the status line is not
updated or the animation doesn't stop immediately after pressing stop, you should increase the step interval.
TIP: If you want to see the inner planets move around the sun: Center
the sun, lock on to it and set the step size to a whole number of days.
If you use steps smaller than a day the ecliptic will wobble in the sky,
making it difficult to grasp the movement of the planets. |
| Limitations |
If you move the time toolbar out of the horizontal toolbar line to the
vertical toolbar or leave it as free floating, Time Stepper will not be
able to find it. This may even be true after you have moved it back. In
this case close and restart Skymap Pro. These problems can be overcome -
but not in this version :-)
If you open a level in Skymap Pro, where the time toolbar has no
effect, then surprisingly Time Stepper won't work either.
The current version of Time Stepper is the very first. It fulfills my
needs and whether there will be a better and more polished version
depends on the amount of feedback and interest it generates.
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| Download |
PLEASE NOTE: I have tested the program itself, but I have not been able
to test the install kit very well, since all my computers already had
the necessary files installed beforehand. Any feedback on your success
(or failure) to install is appreciated.
- .exe file only
Time Stepper depends on the following files:
MSVBVM60.DLL, OLEAUT32.DLL, OLEPRO32.DLL, ASYCFILT.DLL, STDOLE2.TLB,
COMCAT.DLL and MSCOMCT2.OCX.
If you have these files, just download timestep.exe (40 KB) and run
it from anywhere on your harddisk.
- Install kit
If you miss any of the above files or your versions are too old,
download timestep.zip (1.66 MB), unzip it and run setup.exe
- Source
You'll need Visual Basic 6
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| Copyright |
This program is distributed under the Open Source License conditions
ie. it's free, you can use it as you like, but if you redistribute it
(changed or unchanged), you must make the source code available too
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| Disclaimer |
Use this program entirely at your own risk. I do not take
responsibility for any ill effect and so on and so forth.....
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Send feedback to Henrik
Persson
Updated 11th Nov. 2001
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