Xplanet
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Xplanet is a renderer for planetary and Solar System images, capable of producing various types of graphics depicting the Solar System. It is normally used to create computer wallpapers, which may be updated with the latest cloud maps or the regions of Earth which are in sunlight. Xplanet is free software released under the GNU GPL.
Xplanet is a renderer for planetary and Solar System images, capable of producing various types of graphics depicting the Solar System. It is normally used to create computer wallpapers, which may be updated with the latest cloud maps or the regions of Earth which are in sunlight. Xplanet is free software released under the GNU GPL.
Planetary images
Xplanet can also be used to render more general views of objects in the Solar System, such as a view of the Earth from the Moon. In more recent versions, Xplanet depicts eclipses, and some of its images show Jupiter's moons casting an eclipse onto the planet.
Incorporation into other utilities
The c-squares mapper, a web-based mapping utility constructed at CSIRO in Australia in 2002 for displaying the spatial extent of c-squares on the surface of the Earth, was upgraded in 2005–2006 to incorporate Xplanet software in order to display "globe views" (example at right). These views are user-rotatable and zoomable and can offer more realistic views for either Pacific Ocean- or polar- centred data than are possible with a flat map (e.g. equirectangular) projection. A technical description of the c-squares mapper installation process (version 3 onwards), which also requires installation of Xplanet, is available at http://www.marine.csiro.au/csquares/mapper_README.html (also available via Sourceforge).
XplanetFX
Until 2013, XplanetFX was a GTK-frontend for Xplanet under Linux. It provided a simple to use GUI to configure Xplanet and schedule renderings. It also claimed to produce higher quality renderings. XplanetFX was free software released under a permissive vanity license. It closed down when many of the sources it used were shut down or paywalled.
See also
Wikipedia:Producing maps with xplanet EarthDesk
References
External links
Project page winXPlanetBG a Windows GUI Sample output of xplanet: ISS-Position Sample output of xplanet: Mercator view of Earth enhanced with various data like satellites, quakes, active volcanos
Text derived from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1374153210 under CC BY-SA 4.0; modifications have been made.