Quote from: StormBringer;357215Your sentence reads as though there is more than one correct answer.  

Not for interactive Official Traveller Universe maps. If someone could program a site like that for a real world stellar map in 3D, that person should get a Nobel Prize.

I'm kind of partial to Simbad database, Vizier catalog, and especially the Aladin sky atlas located here. Uses the actual Hipparcos and Tycho catalogs to chart nearby stars, even better, it's integrated with other atronomical observatories worldwide. They have some real high resolution star charts that include velocity and trajectory of star systems and groups as well as data on the newly detected exoplanets.

With Aladin you can map out actual unamed stars, and determine their relative distance in parsecs and/or light years either from Earth, or from other nearby known stars . I used this to create a high resolution 3d map of the Plieades star cluster about nine months ago.

The Plieades are some 440 LY or 130 PS distant and there were no charts available for all the visible stars in the cluster. With Aladin data, I was able to include many of the lesser stars (including the earth-type F & G stars there) in the map of that cluster.

Project Rho is really good too! +++

Quote from: jeff37923;357228Not for interactive Official Traveller Universe maps. If someone could program a site like that for a real world stellar map in 3D, that person should get a Nobel Prize.

That would be awesome.

What I meant is that there is only one correct answer to "...if you like Traveller..."  

It's not free but Astrosynthesis is a 3D space mapper that has a bunch of built in tools like travel calculators, system generators, etc.

The maps on this page and the pages that link off from it might be useful for gaming. There are several real star maps on the page.

http://www.stdimension.org/int/Cartography/Maps.htm


- Ed

Quote from: tellius;357026One of the broken links off Project Rho is to a starmap I use all the time.

I found it super useful for a 2-D representation of the local star system.

Nice work.  You've succeeded at a project I started (then subsequently aborted) a couple of years ago.

To clarify for my benefit, the map is oriented along the Galactic Plane -- the X and Y coordinates -- right?  Then the +Z or -Z number next to the star is the distance in light years "up" or "down" from the Galactic Plane, yes?  Again, nifty.

!i!

Quote from: Ian Absentia;357378Nice work.  You've succeeded at a project I started (then subsequently aborted) a couple of years ago.

To clarify for my benefit, the map is oriented along the Galactic Plane -- the X and Y coordinates -- right?  Then the +Z or -Z number next to the star is the distance in light years "up" or "down" from the Galactic Plane, yes?  Again, nifty.

!i!

It isn't my work Ian, though I wish it was

But yes, exactly as you say, oriented along the Galactic Plane and the number next to the star (+/-Z) is the distance in light years up or down.

Quote from: tellius;357387It isn't my work Ian, though I wish it was

That map is an update of the old map from SPI's StarForce as Mr. Chung notes on his website. I have used that for over 30 years, falling apart though it is.

There was a pull-out (20" x 30") starmap in the back of the Bughunters game book from TSR.  It included co-ordinates for each star, as well as a formula for calculating travel distances and times (and a table for the most common trips).  The book can generally be had for peanuts these days.

If you have the co-ords from one of the many star charts that are available, the formula for finding out the distance between two points in three dimensional (euclidean) space is:



This should be good enough unless there are some dirty great big masses in between the two points.

Quote from: tellius;357482This should be good enough unless there are some dirty great big masses in between the two points.

That would certainly ruin one's day - run into a stinking F5 on the way to Fhloston Paradise

Weird, the picture of the formula doesn't show up for me.  Doesn't matter, distance between two points in a cartesian co-ordinate system is not rocket science.

It's the Pythagorean Theorem: The square of the length of the hypotenuse equals the sum of the squares of the lengths of the other two sides.

!i!

[Edit: Ah, tellius got the image of the formula to work.]

Quote from: Ian Absentia;357509[Edit: Ah, tellius got the image of the formula to work.]

No idea why it isn't working for some, I did nothing to get it working. I nicked the image of the formula from here if it makes it easier.

Quote from: Koltar;357372The maps on this page and the pages that link off from it might be useful for gaming. There are several real star maps on the page.

http://www.stdimension.org/int/Cartography/Maps.htm


- Ed

That's a useful site, Ed!

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