add my landscape to Stellarium

[Dennis Spender]

I have tried unsuccessfully for days to add my observing landscape to Stellarium. I have watched and tried to follow countless YT videos. I would thoroughly enjoy speaking with someone who could walk me through the process.

[Georg Zotti]

Have you seen the dedicated chapter in the Stellarium User Guide?

[Dennis Spender]

Didn't know about it, Georg. I thought I tried looking in there without seeing anything. I'm new to the hobby, so much to learn. I'll try to find that in the User Guide. 

[Eric Brotman]

Hi George

I too, tried repeatedly to get my landscape to work in Stellarium

I followed all the instructions in the letter multiple times. All I could see was a mish-mash of blocky shapes.. not my landscape

Good luck let me know the secret

Best

Eric

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[Georg Zotti]

There is no secret. It's all described. What do you mean by blocky shapes (screenshot?) I cannot do your homework.

[Dennis Spender]

Georg, it is a wonderful program. However, for IT neophytes and newbies such as myself, it is quite complicated to understand. Very high learning curve. I think I'll need someone to walk me through the process as the text directions are beyond my physician background. 

[Georg Zotti]

"It doesn't work" or "it's too complicated" is a bit vague. Where is the difficulty? Finding the files, using a text editor to write (or just change existing copies of) structured human and computer-readable configuration files, stitching a panorama photo, using an image editor?

[Dennis Spender]

I'm just overwhelmed with new terminology, Georg. Spherical landscapes, I don't know how to use GIMP or Photoshop, how to create a panoramic photo from my iPhone and then transfer it to my Windows computer, stitch it together, into it into an .ini file for Stellarium. Just a big chunk to learn. Stellarium is a great program. Your documentation looks great. It's just a lot to learn and I'm impatient (my fault). Eventually I'll learn how to do it. It would be so much easier if someone walked me through the process on the phone, essentially holding my hand during the process. When starting from my novice IT experience, there's much to learn. Thanks for your interest.

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Dennis Spender

KE8MCR

989-245-4274 C

[Anthony Scandurra]

1) Go to the website http://heywhatsthat.com

2) Click on the New panorama tab.

3) Input your location parameters following the guide on the screen.

4) Once you get the result, click on the link in the upper right corner labelled "In Stellarium" and then click "Download".

5) Open Stellarium and press F4 (Sky and viewing options window...the third icon down on the left side vertical toolbar).

6) Click the Landscape tab.

7) Click the "Add/remove landscapes..." on the bottom of the box.

8) Click the "Install a new landscape from a ZIP archive..." button.

9) Navigate to the Downloads folder and open the "stellarium-landscape.zip" you downloaded in your web browser.

You're done!

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[Dennis Spender]

Thank you, Anthony. The steps you annotated were easy to follow. I found the downloaded "stellarium-landscape.zip" file and added it to Stellarium. The visible landscape on the program looked different after I did that. When I closed Stellarium and re opened it, the baseline landscape was back and not the downloaded landscape heywhatsthat created. 

Also the landscape, heywhatsthat created, was a generic landscape of my address and did not represent what my view of the sky looks like where my scope is (ie my house, the trees, the distant horizon). In other words, what I would prefer is to photo, from the spot I set my mount and scope, photo the obstacles in the way (house, trees, flat distant horizon) and enter those images into Stellarium. Heywhatsthat seems to create a fairly generic landscape from my address not taking into account my house, trees, etc. 

I have tried my iPhone pano view, I've tried to download Pano360, I've tried Theodolite, and with all I've generated some type of image or az/alt figures, non of which can have I figured out how to convert into any type of file I could load into Stellarium. I would like to have the horizon visible from my viewing location at my home imaged, converted into a file that I can then load into Stellarium. Multiple YT videos display the process that despite me trying to follow I have been unsuccessful. Some invoke Android (I use iPhone) some enter the az/alt figures in Excel (I've have difficulty doing that) some photo stitch still shots (I've failed at that). 

It's really frustrating for me being so inept at putting all the technical details together to accomplish what so many describe as seemingly straightforward and relatively effortless.

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[Anthony Scandurra]

Dennis,

I failed to include the step to make the new landscape the default.

While in Stellarium, press F4 and go to the Landscape tab.  Locate the landscape you added in the left pane.  Click on it, and then check the box labelled "Use this landscape as default" in the Options section.

I have not gone to the trouble to make a landscape that accounts for the trees in my yard.  I might take a swing at that this weekend.  If I do, I'll post the steps here if I can create a coherent list of them.

Tony K4QE

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[Mackenzie Cowell]

Hi Dennis, 

I think the fastest and easiest (but perhaps not the highest quality) way of creating your own panoramic images is to us the google street view mobile app (apple app store, android).

After creating the panorama with the app, there is a sort-of hidden option to export the "private" picture via your phone's file sharing system. Do that, get it on your computer, then follow a tutorial like this one to create the location.ini file with basic parameters (most important is name of the panorma image, and it should be png).

good luck!

here are some screenshots to give you an idea of the app:

[Anthony Scandurra]

Unfortunately, the Google Street View app is no longer available.

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[Dennis Spender]

Tony, so generous of you. Thank you for your interest. This is a new hobby for me. I want so to be an astrophotographer. There are several steep learning curves involved and as a physician it baffles me why I struggle so much. However I know if others have accomplished what I’m trying to do I should be able to as well. However I freely admit, not without the help of other generous folks such as yourself willing to share their knowledge. 

Dennis Spender
989-245-4274C

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[Mackenzie Cowell]

Hey Dennis,

Didn't realize google sunset their Streetview App. Too bad. I took some time to explore alternative mobile apps for autostitching phone camera images into 360 rectilinear projections. Here are some other options:

iphone/android

- HDReye (hdreye.app) - requires account, 3 free stitches per month, HDR, full spherical capture. Works pretty well. free app download from iphone app store

-  360 Ultra Pano - $5, iphone 11 or better; 8000x4000 image, 16kx8k for $5 more. Does not capture nadir or zenith photos so floor and sky will be a tad blurry (doesn't matter for stellarium landscape probably)

- poly.cam / iphone and android apps, also web app - now offers 360 panorama image stitching, zenith and nadir areas are extrapolated by AI. Free to try out. Probably your best bet to start with.

- google pixel 6 phone 360 photosphere camera mode (youtube) - if you own this phone, it has a 360 photosphere panorama mode built-in

 desktop

- hugin - the grand-daddy panostitching tool. clunky but free, cross platform, last update 2022

- ptgui - seems to have a good reputation. kinda pricy, but free trial 

- luminar - apparently it has panoramic photo stitching. like lightroom. https://skylum.com/luminar/panorama-stitching. $8.25 / month or $250 lifetime cost

- microsoft image composite editor - discontinued. archive available 

- and photoshop of course

would be really cool if stellarium had a plugin that that hosted a webpage frontend for smartphones to provide the array of photos and then did the stitching automatically. oh well.

Mac

[chris hanson]

Hi Dennis,

I'm a big user of  the landscapes in Stellarium.  I have landscapes for many of my imaging locations.  I am glad to help you enable your landscape.  Here is a landscape at Jim Edgar Nature Reserve.  I do it a little different than the instructions.  Unzip the file to get the folder.  Copy the folder to the Stellarium>Landscapes folder.  Start Stellarium, go to Landscapes tab and you should see Panther Creek in your list.  The first mistake I made was having a space in the folder name of my landscape.  No spaces.  The INI file is self documented so you can see hoe to setup your own INI.  The INI file MUST be named landscape.ini.  I hope this helps.

Kind regards,

Chris

[Dennis Spender]

Thanks. Good homework assignment. I’ll give these a look. 

Dennis Spender
989-245-4274C

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[Paul Gilmartin]

On 9/27/23 07:56:11, chris hanson wrote:
>
> ....  The first mistake I made was having a space in the folder name of my landscape.  No spaces.
>
Prohibiting pathnames conventional on desktop systems is an
undue burden on user's memory.

Is the restriction documented in the User Guide? Even if so
it would be a kindness to users to quote the pathname properly
in system calls to remove the restriction.

--
gil

[Georg Zotti]

Coming from a background where spaces in paths are evil about as bad as non-ASCII characters on a SMB mounted volume, It never occurred to me that anybody would ever want to use spaces in path names. I will not invest a minute in that, but we accept pull requests.

[Paul Gilmartin]

On 9/27/23 14:34:56, Georg Zotti wrote:
> Coming from a background where spaces in paths are evil about as bad as non-ASCII characters on a SMB mounted volume, It never occurred to me that anybody would ever want to use spaces in path names. I will not invest a minute in that, but we accept pull requests.
>

As an experiment, I copied a landscape, renamed it with a
blank in the new name and zipped it.

In Stellarium I chose Sky and Viewing -> Landscspes ->
Add more landscapes -> zip archive

That opened a system open dialog. Very good -- I wish all
applications would do that. I selected my .zip; Stellarium
unpacked it to my landscapes folder and replied,
"Landscape '...' has been installed successfully."
But it didn't add it to the selection list in the left sidebar.
If it failed it shouldn't report success.

Non-ASCII is better. I took the contributed landscape,
"Caucasus" and renamed it to "Кавказ" and installed it with
no problem.

--
Thanks,
gil

[chris hanson]

Hi Paul,

What you described is the same issue I experienced so that is why I use the processed I described in my reply to Paul.  Copy a landscape folder into the Stellarium>Landscapes folder and it should appear as desired.

[Anthony Scandurra]

Dennis,

I know you have an iPhone, but you really need to borrow a friend's Android phone that has the Photosphere function in the Camera app.  See the link below for details:

https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-android-photo-sphere-1616136#:~:text=Android%20photo%20spheres%20are%20panoramic,share%20them%20on%20Google%20Maps.

Unfortunately, there is no equivalent in the iPhone world that I am aware of.

Once you get the photo created, you must use photo editing software like GIMP (free for Windows, MacOS, or Linux) to remove the sky from the photo.  It was pretty easy for me to do in GIMP.  I took the picture when the sky was gray but a clear day when the sun is down would work, too.  In GIMP, you "select by color" (Shift-O), click on the sky, and then press Ctrl-X.  Finally, you export the photo to PNG format with a name containing no spaces (I used Backyard.png).  Then, you copy the end result to a folder named appropriately by you (like Backyard).  You must also create a file called landscape.ini using a text editor like Notepad (Windows), TextEdit (MacOS), or vi (Linux) containing entries like those found below (I set them up for your presumed location):

[landscape]
name = Backyard
author = Dennis Spender
description = Backyard
type = spherical
maptex = Backyard.png
angle_rotatez = 90
[location]
planet = Earth
country = USA
state = MI
timezone = America/New_York
latitude = +43d31'58"
longitude = -84d9'7"
altitude = 200
light_pollution = 5
display_fog = 0
atmospheric_temperature = 10.0
atmospheric_pressure = -1

(the altitude value above is in meters...adjust accordingly)

Finally, copy the folder containing the Backyard.png and  landscape.ini files into a folder called "landscapes" in Stellarium's directory contained within your home directory.  That path will depend on whether you are using Windows, MacOS, or Linux.

Windows - C:\Users\<yourUserID>\AppData\Roaming\Stellarium\landscapes

MacOS - /home/<yourUserID>/Library/Application Support/Stellarium/landscapes

Linux - /home/<yourUserID>/.stellarium/landscapes

Then, open Stellarium, press F4, click on the Landscapes tab, and select "Backyard" in the left pane.  In the box on the bottom, check the box to make it the default.  Then, check the Transparency box, and set the value to your preference (I suggest starting at .70).

Good luck!

Tony

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[Dennis Spender]

Thanks for all the details Anthony. Certainly is a lot of work.

Dennis Spender
989-245-4274C

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[Marvin Abbott]

I had problems creating the landscape txt file  and the .ini file in a different folder and then copying the two files to the stellarium landscape folder. Try copying a .ini file from one of the other landscapes folders into the new folder. That should work. I have had good success creating the two files in a different folder and then creating a zip file of the two. I may have gone up one level to create the zip file of the two new files. The zip file can be moved over to stellarium landscapes without any problems. Stellarium likes importing zip files.

On Tue, Sep 26, 2023 at 12:54 PM Dennis Spender <dwsp...@gmail.com> wrote:

I have tried unsuccessfully for days to add my observing landscape to Stellarium. I have watched and tried to follow countless YT videos. I would thoroughly enjoy speaking with someone who could walk me through the process.

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[Ron Kramer]

I did this long ago.  I think I looked at a youtube video.  I also took a landscape and loaded it into photoshop to use as a template. I then layed my landscape over it.   If you're seeing pixels then your image is to small.   It's been years since I did it so I don't recall specs. But loading in the moon or other landscape - you can look at the pixel dimensions of the image and then make yours that size.   Mine looks like this.  (while loading it) I see the specs are  4096 x 2048 pixels.   I'm a retired world known photographer so working with photos/graphics is pretty 2nd nature to me. 



final...

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Ron Kramer

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[Ron Kramer]

[Ron Kramer]

This is my landscape.ini.
[landscape]

name = winter
Description = Dome in winter

type = spherical

maptex = winter.png


maptex_bottom = -110
minimal_brightness = -1
Horizon_line_color = .75,.45,.45
angle_rotatez = -20
light_pollution = 5
[location]

planet = Earth
altitude = 212
Latitude = 42d56'52
longitude = -85d47'14

[Georg Zotti]

maptex_bottom at minus 110 (angular) degrees reads bugged. -90 is the largest negative angle available in spherical coordinates.  What is the intent here?

[Paul Sereiko]

Thanks for the Panther West file.  I was finally able to get a new landscape folder to be read by Stellarium by copying and editing your file.  Not sure how to create a .ini from scratch as all my efforts resulted in .txt files that we not recognized as configuration files, so being able to edit y our was a godsend.

[chris hanson]

Hi Paul,

Using Notepad create the contents for the INI the select SAVE-AS.  Type the filename (filename.INI) instead of using a TXT extension.

Regards,

Chris