Distant Suns-Grand Tour 3D Screensaver,
the free version
copyright 2004 by Mike Smithwick
current Version 1.22 build 2, Sept. 15, 2005
Fly through the solar-system in real-time
The Distant Suns-Grand Tour3D is a high-speed full motion solar-system simulator. In addition, this is a real-time clock. The positions and rotations of each of the planets and their moons are accurate to the current date and time!
As the day progresses you can observe the Great Red Spot of Jupiter as it wheels across the face of the giant planet. Watch the moons of Saturn in their daily dance around the majestic ringed world or the Earth rotate under your feet. Every hour the scenes will be different from the previous.
If you like it please drop me a note, (along with OS/Graphics cards combination), so I can see for sure that it works on a wide varity of systems.
Sign up for the monthly Distant Suns Newsletter for news on what's up in the skies and software updates.
Imagine that...until the Spring of 2004 that is. Then imagination will become reality!
FAQ:
Q: Hey! How do I actually start the thing?
A: If you have never run a screensaver before on your system, go to the display properties dialog. Click on the screensaver tab and select from the dropdown "Distant Suns Screen Saver". If you are running Windows 98, it will probably be listed as "ds_flyer". The .exe file you downloaded is merely the installer so you can delete it as you wish.
Q: How do I uninstall this thing?
A: Simple! Go to the install directory (probably c:/program files/distant suns/screensaver) and click on uninstall.exe.
Q: How can I get tech support or report any bugs, er, "issues"?
A: If you need an email address, try here. For
more support options, try here. Make sure to list
out your OS and graphics card.
Q: It crashes when it starts/ends....or like, whatever
A: Ensure you have the latest drivers for your graphics card. The ATI-FX5200 was causing
one user trouble until he upgraded.
Q: There are a lot more moons of Jupiter, why do you only show four?
A: Those were the easiest to calculate.
Q: What's up with the blank spots on some of the moons?
A: Those are areas not yet photographed by our spacecraft. Better coverage of Saturn's
moons should be available next summer when the Cassini spacecraft is nudged into a
Saturnian orbit.
Q: Jupiter seems to rotate a lot faster than the other planets. What's up with that?
A: Correct! Jupiter's "day" is only about 8 hours long. So you will be able to
see its motion quite easily. And as a lovely bonus prize, notice how it is slightly
flattened at the poles.
Q: This screen saver is way cool. Can I distribute it around to my friends?
A: You sure can! Just as long as proper credit is given. And you can only distrubute it in
its original installer package. You cannot repackage it, bundle it or do anyother such
mechanizations without written permission.
Q: Is there a way I can add my own images to the planets, say family photos on the
moons of Neptune?
A: Yup! You can either take your own photos and rename them the same as the surface
textures the screen saver uses. Or, you can tell the screen saver to use different images.
Go to the System32/data2/xml directory. Open up the "xml" file for the object.
Say, mars.xml. And you will find the name of the image file between two tags named
"maintextmap". The full line might look like:
<maintextmap>data3/textmaps/mars_0_3_24.bmp</maintextmap>. Replace the texture
file mars_0_3_24.bmp with the name of your own file. Then move your texture into the
data3/textmaps folder.
Note that your files MUST be in the windows bmp format. And they must be a size that is a
multiple of two on each dimension. Recommended sizes would be 256x128 with millions of
colors, or 512x256.