General Question Why arent Dwarf Planets included in the Base Orbiter 2010?

[jjake101]

Why aren't Pluto, Ceres, Eris, Haumea and Makemake included in the base version of Orbiter?

 

[Kyle]

They're not the "major" planets, however addons do exist of those that can be included into Orbiter.

 

[Spacethingy]

I guess 'cos we don't have any actual textures of them.

E.g. ATM, making a 1:1 scale 3D model of Pluto from this below isn't really going to make a very good impression on Orbiter users... :lol:

Also, Ceres is relatively large for dwarf stuff, again this is all we've got:

Let New Horizons get there in 2015, though, and the addons will be flowing like mad methinks!

 

[Linguofreak]

Why aren't Pluto, Ceres, Eris, Haumea and Makemake included in the base version of Orbiter?

Even before it was reclassified, Pluto wasn't included in the base distribution.

 

[N_Molson]

Probably also because it usually takes ages to get there

 

[Loru]

I have made pluto texture based on available images few years ago for animation I was working on.

Here is it. (2500px1250px) - not orbiter worthy though.

http://www.orbiter-forum.com/gallery/data/500/pluto1.jpg

 

[Kyle]

We should have stunning photos of Pluto and Ceres by 2015 however.

 

[Izack]

Planetary textures are large - minor bodies which aren't seen much by the typical user aren't present, for the purpose of keeping the total size of the base package down.

They are however all, as others have said, available as addons.

 

[BruceJohnJennerLawso]

Planetary textures are large - minor bodies which aren't seen much by the typical user aren't present, for the purpose of keeping the total size of the base package down.

They are however all, as others have said, available as addons.

I think its mostly a case of finding a democratic solution to a complicated problem. We could theoretically have pretty much every known moon for the outer planets in the next orbiter release, a smattering of asteroids, and several dwarf planets, but as noted earlier, they arent really all that useful to have as mission targets.

Orbiter FPS also appears to suffer somewhat from having a lot of celestial bodies defined, not sure why that is sucking CPU at all if they're not being interacted with in any way.

I would like some expansion in the celestial bodies included with the next Orbiter version, but not too much. Some of the better known small-medium moons of Jupiter would be nice...

 

[Izack]

I think its mostly a case of finding a democratic solution to a complicated problem. We could theoretically have pretty much every known moon for the outer planets in the next orbiter release, a smattering of asteroids, and several dwarf planets, but as noted earlier, they arent really all that useful to have as mission targets.

Or it could have been as simple as the good doctor not wanting to bother.

Orbiter FPS also appears to suffer somewhat from having a lot of celestial bodies defined, not sure why that is sucking CPU at all if they're not being interacted with in any way.

They are constantly updating position and orientation. For a modern processor, it is not much of an issue, especially when compared Orbiter's other, more dramatic performance issues (D3D7, for crying out loud...) Performance really drops if planetarium mode is active, and planet markers are being drawn.

I would like some expansion in the celestial bodies included with the next Orbiter version, but not too much. Some of the better known small-medium moons of Jupiter would be nice...

Try "The Outer Planets" uploaded to OH by VF2_Rolf. You might want to selectively install certain moons, as installing the entire package may create problems with Orbiter.