FOSSdome
Episode 9: Resources for Astronomy Art with Blender
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This week I chat about some interesting tools and tutorials for using Blender for non-visualization Astronomy stuff.
Links for this week:
Cycles X https://code.blender.org/2021/04/cycles-x/
Fulldome Production With Blender https://github.com/waystar/2019-Blender-Workshop-Materials
How to make planets in Blender https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6224Wisxwxc
Darkfall Shader Library intro https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbj20u53uW8
The Shader Library https://darkfallblender.blogspot.com/p/the-shader-library.html
Mark Kingsnorth original nebula tutorial (files no longer available, but still good to read) http://www.markkingsnorth.com/2017/01/31/blender-nebula-group-node-tutorial-download/
Mark Kingsnorth Nebula Generator on BlenderMarket https://blendermarket.com/products/nebula-generator
3D Star Map (link to demo version and store in description) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRshK5qhJDA
Black Hole art from Void_SW on BlenderNation https://www.blendernation.com/2021/05/04/hand-picked-blender-art-4/
Create a Black Hole in Blender – Iridesium https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5naMFeWTBeY
Procedural Galaxies in Blender 2.91! -CBaileyFilm https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XQXI5KownU
Procedural Solar Flare Shader Blender Tutorial! – CBaileyFilm https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9anTO45bCM
Mustafar Procedural Lava Planet Shader – CBaileyFilm https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCztNvPGq1w
FOSSdome
Episode 8: Some Resources for Astronomy Visualization with Blender
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Another update and a look at some interesting resources for learning to take astronomy data into Blender for visualization. It’s how the magic gets made!
AstroBlend https://www.astroblend.com/
AstroBlend https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAUcA4vXe2IPdnCjBslj6XQ
AstroBlend at 2015 Blender Conference https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vY-sl1oXME
Dr. Jill Naiman https://www.astronaiman.com/
Dr. Brian Kent https://www.cv.nrao.edu/~bkent/blender/
Matías Gárate’s Blender & Astronomy Tutorial. Using Voxel Data for 3D visualization https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjFmkbKBKd0WuhhbR2MGPXZyWW7TPcNSw
FOSSdome
Episode 7: Open Source Astronomy Software Carte du Ciel and Virtual Moon Atlas
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An update on what I’ve been up to and then checking out two more pieces of open source astronomy software.
Links for this episode:
Loading NASA Perseverance and Ingenuity models into Blender https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36u94eMMHuU
Sunset Meditation show from Brown Planetarium https://www.bsu.edu/web/planetarium/productions-and-show-leasing#accordion_sunsetmeditation
Mark Kingsnorth Nebula Generator for Blender https://blendermarket.com/products/nebula-generator
Cartes du Ciel https://www.ap-i.net/skychart//en/start
Virtual Moon Atlas https://ap-i.net/avl/start
FOSSdome
Episode 6: Open Source Astronomy Tools KStars
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A look at free and open source desktop planetarium software KStars, and why it deserves a a spot on the hard drive.
Links for this episode:
KStars https://edu.kde.org/kstars/
KStars user docs https://docs.kde.org/trunk5/en/kstars/kstars/index.html
Inkscape https://inkscape.org/
SVG format https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalable_Vector_Graphics
FOSSdome
Episode 4: Open Source Astronomy Tools -Stellarium
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And intro to open source astronomy software and a bit of an overview on Stellarium.
Links mentioned in this episode:
Stellarium https://stellarium.org
Stellarium web https://stellarium-web.org/
Waylena’s post on custom Stellarium landscapes https://fossdome.com/a-stitch-in-time-or-space/
Waylena’s post on using Stellarium remote https://fossdome.com/stellarium-remote-fun/
Hugin Panorama photo stitcher http://hugin.sourceforge.net/
GIMP https://www.gimp.org/
VIDEO
Had a bit of fun making videos to celebrate in the weeks leading up to the Mars Perseverance landing. This one was one of my favorites.
Links from the video:
Blender http://www.blender.org
Blender HiRISE DTM Importer http://github.com/phaseIV/Blender-Hir…
HiRISE DTM Quickstart http://www.uahirise.org/dtm/howto.php
Terrain model data http://www.uahirise.org/dtm/dtm.php?I…
Mars Perseverance Mission http://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/
I LOVE open source software!
Stellarium is one of the top open source software packages for desktop sky viewing. Since I won’t be presenting shows in a physical planetarium any time soon, I figured I should work out how to present better online.
Stellarium has a remote web interface plugin that is pretty easy to set up. So I’m using my giant monitor for presentation and my little monitor for controls and for programming.
I’m clumsy with the on-screen menus, so having them on a separate monitor is great! Some actions take a while to set up, so I tried a little scripting to automate some stuff.
And then I decided that rather than hunting through pull-down menus for my little scripts I should make some buttons for scripts and actions.
So I started modifying the html.
Thankfully I found an
Atom package to make that json readable.
I don’t often spend enough time in any given language to get good at it. But in this effort, I’m digging into Stellarium scripting/javascript, html, and to find the right language for scripting actions I found myself searching the
source code for the project itself.
