Archaeoastronomy in Stellarium

[Antwane Lee]

Hello:

I am new to Stellarium and am looking for reference materials for doing 3D simulations of  ancient sites in the software to better understand the astronomical alignments with architectural elements. I am a trained architect. Please see the link below to a YouTube video that shows how Stellarium can be used in this application:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QdENQLx8FE&t=100s

Please review and give me your thoughts on documents I can obtain and ways to do this.

Thank you.

Antwane

[Georg Zotti]

Thanks for your interest. Seems you found my talk already...

On stellarium.org you find a few recent papers linked. The JSA paper contains a lot of references to other relevant papers.

The User Guide, chapter 15, contains most relevant information on how to bring your georeferenced OBJ into Stellarium. Usually, if it looks OK in MeshLab, it should work in Stellarium. 

If static architecture is not enough, I have also developed a Unity module to use Stellarium's sky as background for a Unity-based simulation. See our github repo.

I am also available for (funded) collaboration... ;-) -- pm me!

Kind regards,

Georg

[Antwane Lee]

Georg:

I will take a look at the documentation and let you know if I have any questions.

Thank you for your assistance.

Antwane

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[Antwane Lee]

Georg:

I hope that you are doing well today.

I am still having issues understanding how to bring an OBJ file into Stellarium. Chapter 15 is not clear to me and appears to me more about how to export an OBJ file from other software packages.

Can you please send me links to video tutorials on the subject?

Please let me know.

Thanks again for your assistance.

Antwane

[Georg Zotti]

Please inspect the two examples that are included, Testscene or Sterngarten, or inspect the scenes available for download from Stellarium.org. I expect some knowledge about 3D model formats, and expect you to know about the difference between geographical coordinates and survey grid coordinates. 3D models are usually modelled in linear Cartesian coordinates. When the grid axes are parallel to a survey grid, files are easily imported.

I don't teach 3D modelling, and I am not aware of a video tutorial about how to exchange a few lines in a config file that uses English terminology and is fully described in the User Guide.

What data do you have?

[Kamil Lipek]

Is there an option to view the system and the earth live, in real time fps?

pt., 7.03.2025, 03:35 użytkownik Kamil Lipek <lipe...@gmail.com> napisał:

Is there an option in View, Polls, Deep Sky. Can I add a Select All button?

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/stellarium/fd3602a6-4e0b-4094-b510-1a5a91c20d7an%40googlegroups.com.

[Kamil Lipek]

Is there an option in View, Polls, Deep Sky. Can I add a Select All button?

czw., 6.03.2025, 22:49 użytkownik Georg Zotti <georg...@univie.ac.at> napisał:

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/stellarium/fd3602a6-4e0b-4094-b510-1a5a91c20d7an%40googlegroups.com.

[Kamil Lipek]

You can help me set up sandbox.game and PayPal developer

[Antwane Lee]

Georg:

I am an architect and have created a 3D model file that was exported from an Autocad file into OBJ format. My problem is that I cannot find instructions on how to bring my 3D model into Stellarium so I can see the astronomical alignments. I have the surrounding desert and mountains modelled in 3D based upon GIS data. Is there a way I can bring my model into Stellarium?

Please let me know.

Thanks again for your assistance.

Antwane

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/stellarium/CAOMJGo29S_eUk7MM%3DnsQSwgdg3%3D7OPLavBT6rBHve5-KcsDO1Q%40mail.gmail.com.

[Georg Zotti]

I don't know what your problem is when all you write is "it does not work" and/or "I am clueless". The written instructions in the User Guide, all three pages of 15.4.3, are all that I can offer, and I refer to my own instructions myself whenever I need them.

Let us take for granted the OBJ has been exported as text file in the Wavefront OBJ format. Next to it is most likely a material file, .MTL. This is another text file which may point to textures. Many OBJ exporters mess up path names or material property keys. Check that the OBJ loads in MeshLab.

As written in the User Guide: In your Stellarium User Data Directory, locate or create a scenery3d subfolder. In that, create another subfolder for your model. Let's call it myModel. 

In scenery3d/myModel, add the OBJ, MTL and texture files (these can go into a subfolder, let us call it textures). The texture entries in the MTL file must point to the textures in the textures subfolder. Check that the OBJ loads in MeshLab.

In scenery3d/myModel, add a file scenery3d.ini. Make sure its ending is ini, not ini.txt. Windows is stupid to hide file endings by default.

Read the description of the scenery3d.ini file in the User Guide, and study the contents of the existing examples that have been set up like tutorials. Write keys exactly as shown, and values are they fit your data. What else shall I say at this point?

Then, tell me exactly what problem you face.

- Coordinate system. Is the model coodinate system related to survey coordinates? (EPSG codes for UTM-like or similar Transversal Mercator grids)

- OBJ axis orientation: Use obj_order=XYZ/XZY/... as needed

- model appears blocky and jitters. Must appear broken already in Meshlab. Coordinates are in full UTM or similar coordinates.  Solution: Find a way to make smaller coordinate values by subtracting full thousands of metres. Real-time graphics works best with single-precision floating point numbers with all limitations.

-...

Are there messages in the Logfile?

G.

[Antwane Lee]

Georg:

Thanks for the response.

I will work on it and see if I have any questions.

Thank you.

Antwane

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