Play and Learn 2

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ Play and Learn 2 / 19941.ZIP / 19941 / EDUCNOMY / COSMOHOD / OCH.DOC < prev next >

Wrap

Text File | 1994-02-04 | 41.2 KB | 931 lines

Our Cosmohood version 1.10 A 3d View of Our Cosmic Neighborhood (c) 1991 by Jeff Bondono When you look at the night sky, it looks like you are viewing stars, nebulae, and galaxies which have been glued to a clear sphere which rotates overhead. A glance at a star atlas shows the same thing: a two-dimensional projection of the universe onto a piece of paper. Of course, the true universe is a three-dimensional entity. All of the objects you see are so incredibly distant that your normal three-dimensional perception is rendered useless. Our Cosmohood enhances your view of our cosmic neighborhood by letting you view it in three dimensions. Our Cosmohood does not deal with objects within our galaxy, the Milky Way, but rather lets you view the nearest 2,368 galaxies to the Earth. The source for the program's data is "The Nearby Galaxies Catalog", by R. Brent Tully. That book and its companion, "The Nearby Galaxies Atlas", by R. Brent Tully and J. Richard Fisher, are highly recommended by this author. Our Cosmohood runs in two modes. The first mode, which is completely general in approach, lets you specify exactly where, in three dimensions, you wish to place your eye, where you wish to center your field of view, and how wide you wish the field to be. It also lets you select subsets of the dataset to plot, and allows you to select color-coding and object- labelling. The second mode, the demonstration, simply lets you view a "movie" which takes you on a trip through Our Cosmohood. It is, obviously, much simpler to operate than the first mode, and is how I recommend you begin using the program. To run the demo, press ! when you see the main program menu. TABLE OF CONTENTS #1. QUICK START #2. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS #3. REGISTRATION #4. PRELIMINARIES #4A. INSTALLATION / CONFIGURATION / STARTUP PARAMETERS #4B. FILES #4C. TECHNIQUES OF INPUT #4D. IDENTIFICATION OF OBJECTS #4E. BEEPS #5. MAIN MENU OPERATION #5A. EYE #5B. VIEW #5C. ZOOM #5D. LENGTH OF AXES #5E. SELECT #5F. MARKERS #5G. DRAW #5H. IDENTIFY OBJECTS #5I. CREATE ANIMATION #5J. ANIMATE #5K. PLAYBACK FILM #5L. WATCH MOVIE #5M. DEMONSTRATION #5N. HELP #5O. QUIT PROGRAM #6. CREATE ANIMATION MENU OPERATION #6A. DEFINITIONS OF ANIMATION, FILMS, MOVIES #6B. TYPE OF MOTION #6C. EYE #6D. VIEW #6E. ZOOM #6F. LENGTH OF AXES #6G. SELECT #6H. NUMBER OF STEPS #6I. READ ANIMATION SEQUENCE #6J. WRITE ANIMATION SEQUENCE #6K. FILM ANIMATION #6L. HELP #6M. QUIT ANIMATION MENU #6N. EXAMPLES #7. MOVIES #8. OBJECT MEMBERSHIP #9. WARRANTY Section #1. QUICK START: For those of you who already know your way around computers, here is how to get Our Cosmohood up and running quickly. Insert the installation disk into drive A:, and type A:INSTALL. Complete instructions for installing and starting Our Cosmohood will be shown. Section #2. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: Our Cosmohood requires a PC-compatible machine with a hard disk and either a VGA, EGA ,CGA or Hercules graphics adapter. It is recommended that you have a VGA or EGA display adapter that is capable of displaying 2 pages of 640x350 graphics in 16 colors. The CGA version of the program will use the 1 page 640x200 black and white mode. The program has only been tested with MS DOS 4.01 and MS DOS 5.0, but I believe it will run with MS DOS 2.0 or higher. To run the fast demonstration, your hard disk must have 2.2 MegaBytes free. To run the slow demonstration, your hard disk needs only about 600 KiloBytes free. Our Cosmohood requires about 500K of free memory. A mouse is optional. If you wish to use one, load your mouse driver before you startup Our Cosmohood. The demo assumes you are using a 640x350 16-color graphics mode. Section #3. REGISTRATION: Your version Our Cosmohood is complete and is not crippled in any way. However, bear in mind that this is NOT FreeWare, but ShareWare. You have 14 days to try out the program to see if it is of interest to you. If you decide it is not, destroy your copies of the program and you owe nothing. If, however, you decide to keep the program, send a $25 registration fee to me. Many hours were spent typing and checking the data, and writing and refining the program and the demonstration. In return for registration, you will receive instructions for eliminating the registration reminder screens, and I'll send you the next upgrade to the program for free. I am currently working on a version which gives you a truer 3d effect through the use of 3d viewing glasses. I make no promises that this version will ever work or be released, but everyone who registers is assured of getting one if it is released. When a new version is released, I will send it to you automatically. To register, send $25 your name and address your current version number (from the title screen) whether or not you have a math coprocessor the size and capacity of the disk you would like me to send Send registration to: Jeff Bondono 51054 Kingwood Shelby Twp, MI 48316 (313) 731-4706 (evenings and weekends) If you would like a math-coprocessor copy (which is much faster) of your current version sent to you immediately upon receipt of your registration fee, please indicate so, and include an extra $4 to cover the diskette, duplication, and postage. You will still receive the next version free. Section #4. PRELIMINARIES: Before we begin using the program, a few preliminaries are in order: Section #4A. INSTALLATION / CONFIGURATION / STARTUP PARAMETERS: Throughout this documentation, I am assuming that your system's floppy drive is drive A:. If it is something else, then whenever I refer to A:, use your floppy drive's letter instead. To install Our Cosmohood onto your hard disk, get to a DOS prompt, put the installation disk in your floppy drive, and type A:INSTALL and press ENTER. The installation procedure will give you complete instructions for installing and starting up your version of the Our Cosmohood. I would strongly suggest that you run through the demonstration at least once to get your feet wet with the program and see its capabilities. The demonstration will explain the coordinate system which is used by the program, and give you a lot more valuable information which is NOT duplicated in this document. If you then wish to delete the demonstration, it is quite easy to do (see the #4B files section). Part of the installation process will determine the graphics mode which the program should use. This graphics mode will be written to a file named OCH.CFG, which you may change, if you wish, to one of these modes: OCH GRAPHICS GRAPHICS NUMBER NUMBER VALUE TYPE MODE SIZE OF COLORS OF PAGES Notes 90 VGA LO 640x200 16 2 91 VGA MED 640x350 16 2 92 VGA HI 640x480 16 1 30 EGA LO 640x200 16 2 31 EGA HI 640x350 16 2 40 EGA64 LO 640x200 16 1 41 EGA64 HI 640x350 4 1 53 EGAMONO HI 640x350 2 1 64K on card 54 EGAMONO HI 640x350 2 2 256K on card 70 Hercules MONO 720x348 2 2 14 CGA HI 640x200 2 1 24 MCGA MED 640x200 2 1 25 MCGA HI 640x480 2 1 The demo assumes you are using a 640x350 16-color video mode. If you use a 1-page video mode, the animations in Our Cosmohood will appear jerky. A 2-page mode lets the program draw each screen while you're viewing the other page, then flips each page into view after it is completely drawn. You can override the graphics mode which is specified in OCH.CFG by specifying a /g## startup parameter on the command line. Replace ## with any of the above OCH VALUES. For example, OCH /G92 will run in 1-page 640x480 VGA mode. To run Our Cosmohood after you have installed it, switch into the directory you installed it into and type OCH. Section #4B. FILES: These files are part of Our Cosmohood: These files MUST be available to run Our Cosmohood: OCH.EXE the executable program OCH.OBJ data file of galaxies OCH.PNT data file of galaxies OCH.CFG configuration file (contains video mode) OCH.DOC the file you're reading now (used for HELP) These files are only part of the demonstration, and can be deleted if you no longer want the demonstration: *.DCR animation descriptor files *.ANI animation detail files *.FLM film files (fast demonstration only) *.MVI movie files This file is used only the first time Our Cosmohood is run, then is deleted from your hard disk: OCH.TXT text files used to build .DCR and .MVI files To erase the fast demo, if you need the disk space, ERASE *.FLM Section #4C. TECHNIQUES OF INPUT: Two types of input are used by Our Cosmohood. The first is simple selection of entries from menus. You may select a menu line in any of three ways: with your up and down cursor keys and the enter key, by typing the bright letter, or by pointing your mouse at the menu line and clicking your left mouse button. The other type of input into the program is character or numeric input. Defaults are usually supplied to all prompts. You may use your cursor keys, insert and delete, etc to move around and edit your response. The Escape key will cancel most extended program operations, like playing back movies, films, and animations. Section #4D. IDENTIFICATION OF OBJECTS. The galaxies are identified by one of the types of names listed below. If an object can be identified by a name which appears both higher and lower in the list, the higher one is used. M : Messier N : New General Catalog I : Index Catalogue U : Upsalla General Catalog UA: Upsalla General Catalog Appendix a name formed from the 1950 right ascension and declination. Cloud and group affiliations are described in section 8. Section #4E. BEEPS. The program will emit a beep occasionally when calculating a 3d projection. 3d projections are calculated when you build a movie, or when you display an animation, or when you simply draw a screen in manual mood. The beep indicates when a floating point operation overflow or zero-divide is encountered. An occasional beep is not a problem... it merely signifies a galaxy which is right at one of the boundaries of the volume you are viewing. If the program goes crazy, though, and emits many beeps in rapid succession, you have probably specified some parameter(s) which are out of range. Section #5. MAIN MENU OPERATION Section #5A. EYE: EYE is where your eyeball is placed; the spot where you're watching the data from. Simply type in the X, Y, and Z coordinates which you wish to view the data from. Section #5B. VIEW: VIEW is the center of the field which you are viewing, in X, Y, and Z coordinates. The demonstration always centers your view on 0,0,0 (the Milky Way), but the program is much more general than that. Section #5C. ZOOM: ZOOM specifies how large your field of view is. It is a single number, not an X, Y, Z coordinate. Note that the units of this number are NOT megaparsecs, or light years, or any other intuitive units, but are instead related to the internal graphical transformation techniques used by the program. You will just have to play around with various values to get the factor right for what you wish to see. The true size of the field of view is related to both the zoom factor and the distance of the eye from the view. For a general idea of true distance on the screen, note that the LENGTH OF AXES is displayed on the screen. Section #5D. LENGTH OF AXES: This number specifies the length of the three coordinate axes, in MegaParsecs. Be careful to specify a length which is within your zoom area, or else the coordinate axes will not show properly. Section #5E. SELECT: SELECT is used to select which galaxies out of the full database should be drawn. There are several types of selection criteria which can be used. All selection criteria you wish to use should be strung together into one string, with each individual criteria separated by a comma. The criteria are: object : Selects one specific object. Just type in the object identifier. Examples: M87,N4124 group : Each galaxy is assigned one or two groups or associations. Examples of groups are 11+01 for all galaxies in the Virgo Association, or 11-01 for all galaxies in the Virgo Cluster, or 11 for all galaxies in cloud 11, or 1 for all galaxies in clouds 11 through 19. If you select a group, all of the galaxies in that group are selected. M : De-select non-Messier galaxies. Xnumber#number : De-select galaxies whose X coordinate are less than the first number, or greater than the second number. Ynumber#number : Same for Y coordinate. Znumber#number : Same for Z coordinate. The program uses a these steps to select galaxies. First, it deselects all galaxies. Then, it looks for an object or group selection criteria. If it doesn't find one, it selects all galaxies. If it does find one, it selects all matching galaxies. Finally, it de-selects galaxies which fail the M, X, Y, or Z criteria. Those that remain will be drawn. Examples of select criteria are: 11-01,M select only Messier galaxies in group 11-01 X-2.5#5.5 select only galaxies whose x coordinate falls between -2.5 and 5.5 11-01,M,M31 select only Messier galaxies in group 11-01, and galaxy M31 Section #5F. MARKERS: MARKERS are used to mark the galaxies which are drawn on the screen in various ways. Several types if markers can be used. All of the markers which you desire should be strung together into one string, with each individual marker separated by a comma. The markers are: M : Draw the name next to each Messier galaxy * : Draw the name next to every galaxy object : Draw the name next to the specified object O : Draw 3 small orthographic projections in the bottom left corner of the screen. Cgroup : Color the galaxies in the indicated group, and make other galaxies gray. Up to 12 C clauses can be specified in a marker, allowing 12 groups to be colored in different colors. G : Draw the galactic equator on the screen, using LENGTH OF AXES as its radius. E : Draw the equatorial equator on the screen, using LENGTH OF AXES as its radius. N : Draw the north celestial hemisphere on the screen, using LENGTH OF AXES as its radius. S : Draw the south celestial hemisphere on the screen, using LENGTH OF AXES as its radius. Examples of markers are: M87,N4124 label M87 and N4124 C11-01,C11+01 Color galaxies belonging to group 11-01 and 11+01, and leave the rest gray. O,*,E Draw orthographic projections, label all galaxies, and draw in the celestial equator. Section #5G. DRAW: DRAW is used after you have set up EYE, VIEW, ZOOM, LENGTH OF AXES, SELECT, and MARKERS. It tells the program to use those parameters, perform the 3d-transformation, and draw the screen. Section #5H. IDENTIFY OBJECTS: After a screen is drawn, you can use IDENTIFY OBJECTS to obtain the names of the objects which were plotted. Use your cursor keys to move from one object to the next, or move your mouse to the object you wish to identify and click your left mouse button. You may also press ENTER while in IDENTIFY OBJECTS mode, then type in an object name. The object will be found for you. Section #5I. CREATE ANIMATION: This menu entry takes you to the CREATE ANIMATION submenu. That submenu is where you create animation sequences, such as those used in the demonstration. Section 6 explains the CREATE ANIMATION menu completely. Section #5J. ANIMATE: This function plays back an animation. The 3d projection is calculated for each selected point for each step in the animation. The played-back animation is in a .DCR file and an .ANI file. Section #5K. PLAYBACK FILM: This function plays back a film. Since the 3d projection of the selected points for each step was saved in a file, this runs much quicker than an animation. The played-back film is in a .DCR file, an .ANI file, and a .FLM file. Section #5L. WATCH MOVIE: A movie is simply a set of animation and film playbacks, with some special effects sprinkled in. A movie script is created and modified using a standard text editor, which is not supplied with Our Cosmohood. The demonstration for Our Cosmohood is actually a movie file, named U.MVI, which you can review as an example. A complete explanation of the various commands which are legal in a movie file is contained in section 7. All movie files must have an extension of .MVI. While you are watching a movie (or the demo), You can press the @ key to cause the remainder of the current film or animation to be skipped. Section #5M. DEMONSTRATION: This function plays the demonstration movie (U.MVI). The ! key starts up the demonstration. Section #5N. HELP: The help function lets you browse this OCH.DOC file. Instructions are provided on the browse screen. The only thing which needs further explaination is that FINDs always begin with the second line on the screen, and the found text is displayed on the top line of the screen. Section #5O. QUIT PROGRAM: This function quits The Our Cosmohood program and returns you to DOS. Section #6. CREATE ANIMATION MENU OPERATION: Now we get into the real meat of the program. If you've played around with the program in manual mode, you've seen that you must really go through a lot of work to get enough views of the data to really understand the three-dimensional relationships of the various galaxies. Animations let you easily define motion to perform, then draw the frames one after the other, as is done in the demonstration. CREATE ANIMATION provides you with a menu to generate these motions, then you may play them back from the main menu. Section #6A. DEFINITIONS OF ANIMATION, FILMS, MOVIES: Three levels of animations are used by the program. The first, an animation, allows you to specify a single motion to be performed. Animations alleviate you from having to type in the several parameters required for each viewpoint, but they are not especially fast or movie-like. Therefore, the second level of animation, a film, is provided. A film actually calculates the pixel position of each of the selected galaxies in each step of an animation, and writes those to a file. When a film is played-back, the calculations needed are minimal, and a much higher speed of refreshing the display is obtained. The third level of animation, a movie, is used to combine animations and films, along with many other miscellaneous drawing and labelling functions. The demonstration which comes with Our Cosmohood is actually simply a set of movies. Movies are simple text files which are created outside of the Our Cosmohood program with your favorite text editor, then played-back using the WATCH MOVIE command. The instructions for building a movie text file are explained in section 7. Now we can get on with specific instructions about how to build an animation. Section #6B. TYPE OF MOTION: TYPE OF MOTION specifies just that...the type of motion you wish to have in the animation sequence. 10 types of motion are permitted: EYE AROUND VIEW: This type of motion moves your EYE in a circle centered on the VIEW point. The VIEW point is the three-dimensional center of the circle which the eye moves around. The implication of that confusing sentence is that if your EYE begins, say, above the VIEW point, then when your EYE reaches the point 180 degrees around the circle, it will be BELOW the VIEW. The ZOOM factor can change during the rotation, if you wish, to create spiral motion. The rotation of 360 degrees is broken into NUMBER OF STEPS frames. EYE AROUND Z: This is the same as EYE AROUND VIEW, except as the EYE rotates, it is always held at the starting Z value. PAN: This moves both the EYE and the VIEW in NUMBER OF STEPS equal straight-line steps. If you hold VIEW constant (by specifying the same begin and end point), then you are panning your EYE (moving the camera in a line while pointing at a constant spot). If you hold the EYE constant, then you are panning your VIEW (keeping the camera in the same spot, but moving the center-of-field focal point). VIEW AROUND EYE: This is the same as EYE AROUND VIEW, except the EYE remains stationary, and the VIEW goes around in a circle. This is like standing somewhere and turning your head all the way around to see what is around you in all directions. VIEW AROUND Z: This is the same as EYE AROUND Z, except the EYE remains stationary, and the VIEW goes around in a circle. AXIS VIEWS 1-7: In the demonstration, this animation sequence is used a lot. It starts with a view looking down at all three axes. Step 1 moves the view to X=0, Z=0. Steps 2-3 move the view to Y=0, Z=0. Steps 4-5 move the view to X=0, Y=0. Steps 6-7 move the view to the original point. AXIS VIEWS 1-3: This sequence performs steps 1-3 of the AXIS VIEWS. AXIS VIEWS 4-7: This sequence performs steps 4-7 of the AXIS VIEWS. AXIS VIEWS 1-5: This sequence performs steps 1-5 of the AXIS VIEWS. AXIS VIEWS 6-7: This sequence performs steps 6-7 of the AXIS VIEWS. Section #6C. EYE: This specifies the beginning and ending point for the EYE during the motion. Some of the motion types do not require an ending point. Section #6D. VIEW: This specifies the beginning and ending point for the VIEW during the motion. Some of the motion types do not require an ending point. Section #6E. ZOOM: This specifies the beginning and ending ZOOM factor to be used during the animation. The difference in the ZOOM factor is spread- out evenly during the steps of the animation. Section #6F. LENGTH OF AXES: This specifies the length of the axes to be used during the animation. The axes are held at a fixed length throughout an entire animation. Section #6G. SELECT: This specifies the selection criteria which are used to limit the data which is plotted during an animation. The same format as the main menu's SELECT entry is used. Section #6H. NUMBER OF STEPS: This specifies the number of frames that the motion is broken down into. If this number is small, the motion will not take long, but will be jerky. If the number is large, the motion will be smoother, but will take a longer time. Section #6I. READ ANIMATION SEQUENCE: This function lets you select an animation sequence (.DCR file) to read from disk. Section #6J. WRITE ANIMATION SEQUENCE: This function lets you write an animation sequence (.DCR file and .ANI file) that you designed to disk. Section #6K. FILM ANIMATION: When animations are played back, the 3d projection for each selected point is recalculated at each step of the animation. This means that the playback may be very slow, depending on the number of selected points. Therefore, films are provided. When you film an animation, you are creating a file which contains the 3d projection for each selected point for each step of the animation. This file is read back in and quickly drawn on the screen when you playback the film, yielding a much faster animation. A .FLM file is created. Note that since a film file records actual pixel positions, it is dependant on the video mode you select. Section #6L. HELP: This help works the same as the main menu help entry. Section #6M. QUIT ANIMATION MENU: This function returns you to the main program menu. Section #6N. EXAMPLES: These three examples let you familiarize yourself with the process of creating animations. One word of caution is in order before we begin, though. The examples let you take a walk around the Virgo Cluster. No one really knows the exact placement of the galaxies in the Virgo Cluster, though, or any other cluster for that matter. The positional data in the Nearby Galaxies Catalog is simply based on redshift. If one galaxy has a higher redshift than another, it is assumed to be further. This, of course, completely neglects the portion of the redshift of each galaxy which is due to its own peculiar motion within the cluster. However, the redshift is the only data available to work from, so Tully used it to assign distances to galaxies. One correction was made, however. Assuming that the Virgo Cluster is somewhat round, Tully corrected the distances to the member galaxies so that the cluster would appear round in three dimensions. This process was used for several clusters of galaxies in the Nearby Galaxies Catalog. The conclusion of this discussion is that although the examples will make it appear that you are walking around an accurate model of the Virgo Cluster, the data on such a small scale is not yet accurate. The overall larger-scale structures shown in the data are accurate, but the detailed position of each galaxy within those structures is a subject still being researched. Section #6N1. Walking around the Virgo Cluster. Get into the CREATE ANIMATION submenu. Type in: TYPE OF MOTION: EYE AROUND Z EYE: 0, 0, 0 VIEW: -3.8, 16.7, -0.7 ZOOM: 2.2 to 2.2 LENGTH OF AXES: 1.7 SELECT: 11-01 NUMBER OF STEPS: 72 WRITE ANIMATION SEQUENCE: VIRGO (feel free to pick your own name) QUIT ANIMATION MENU ANIMATE (then select VIRGO) You should now see the Virgo Cluster rotating around on your screen. Section #6N2. To make that animation more smooth, go back to the CREATE ANIMATION submenu and type in: READ ANIMATION SEQUENCE: VIRGO NUMBER OF STEPS: 360 WRITE ANIMATION SEQUENCE: VIRGO (replace it) QUIT ANIMATION MENU ANIMATE: VIRGO You should now see a much smoother animation. The steps are only 1 degree per frame. However, the animation takes a long time to run because of all the calculations which are being done. Section #6N3. To make the animation run quicker, go back to the CREATE ANIMATION submenu and type in: READ ANIMATION SEQUENCE: VIRGO FILM ANIMATION: VIRGO (go get a cup of coffee -- this will take a while) QUIT ANIMATION MENU PLAYBACK FILM: VIRGO (now sit back and enjoy) Section #7. MOVIES. Each line of a movie script file must contain a valid movie command. In order to make movies run as quickly as possible, the commands must conform to some very strict format conventions. The command letter must appear in the first position of the line, and must be in lowercase. Some commands have parameters which are required to be in definite formats. These commands and parameters are now documented: ;(comment): Anything following the command character is ignored when the movie is played back. d(descriptor): This command reads in an animation description (.DCR) file and determines which objects meet the selection criteria. Everything following the command character is assumed to be the filename of the descriptor file, with no extension. a(animate): This command plays back an animation. The descriptor must already have been read in. Everything following the command character is assumed to be the filename of the animation (.ANI) file, with no extension. f(film): This command plays back a film (.FLM file). The rules are the same as for the "a" command. If the film is not found when the movie is played back, this command is converted to an "a" and the program tries again. g(stolen film): This command plays back a film (.FLM file), also, except it uses a different film file that would normally be used. This command was included only to save you disk space on the demo (several of the animations all use data from one common film file), and I recommend that you do NOT use it. p(pause): This command writes out the "SPACE=CONTINUE....." message and waits for the user to press a key or a timer to expire. Anything following the command character is ignored. t(text): This command writes text to the screen. Positions 2 through 4 are a 3-digit horizontal position on the screen where the text will be written. Assuming a 640x350 video mode, the leftmost edge of the screen is position 000, and the rightmost is 639. Position 5 is ignored. Positions 6 through 8 are the 3-digit vertical position of the text, ranging from 000 on the top to 349 at the bottom (assuming 640x350 again). Position 9 is ignored. Positions 10 through 12 are the color of the text, which in 16-color mode are: 000=black, 001=blue, 002=green, 003=cyan, 004=red, 005=magenta, 006=brown, 007=lightgray, 008=darkgray, 009=lightblue, 010=lightgreen, 011=lightcyan, 012=lightred, 013=lightmagenta, 014=yellow, and 015=white. Position 13 is ignored. The rest of the record is the text to write. s(select): This command redefines the selection criteria for the records to be plotted. It follows the same conventions as the other selection criteria in the program. Everything after the command character must be the selection criteria. m(markers): This command redefines the markers which are used. It follows the same conventions as the main menu markers line. Everything after the command character must be the markers value. h(heading): This command defines a text heading which is written on the top line of the screen whenever objects are plotted on the screen. Everything after the command character is the text heading. r(redraw): This command forces the objects on the screen to be redrawn using the last defined projection criteria. Everything after the command character is ignored. x(text at xyz): This command writes text at the location projected for an x,y,z coordinate. Following the command character is an x coordinate and a comma, then a y coordinate and a comma, then a z coordinate and a comma, then a 3-character color code and a comma, then the text to write. y(line): This draws a line in 3d space. Following the command character is an x coordinate and a comma, a y coordinate and a comma, and a z coordinate and a comma. This x,y,z coordinate is at one end of the line. Next is the other end of the line, specified in an identical way. Next is a 3-character color code and a comma. The rest of the line is ignored. c(call): This command calls another movie file. Movie files can be nested 3 movies deep. Everything after the command character is the filename of the movie file (.MVI), without any extension. Section #8. OBJECT MEMBERSHIP The first 2 digits of a galaxy's membership is a cloud name. After the cloud name is either one or two sets of a sign and a 2-digit number. If the sign is negative, it indicates a group. If it is positive it indicates an association. The table below shows the cloud names as headings, with the groups and association within those clouds underneath. Only groups and associations which I was able to identify with a standard group name are shown. 11:Virgo Cluster / Southern Extension 01:Virgo Cluster 20:N5054 03:N4532 21:N5084 04:N4536 22:N5101 05:N4339 23:N4965 08:N4666 24:N4235=Virgo West Cluster 10:N4699 25:N4385 11:N4697 27:N4658 12:N4958 28:N5254 13:UA312 29:N4593 14:N4594=M104 30:N4902 15:N4856 31:N5044 17:N4995 32:N5161 18:N5170 33:UA327 19:N5042 34:N4433 35:I4351 12:Ursa Major Cloud 01:N3992=Ursa Major Cluster 11:N2146 02:N3631 12:N3613 03:N3998 13:N3445 04:U6534 14:N3065 05:N4036 16:N3780 06:N4151 17:N2551 07:N2985 18:N3656 08:N3403 19:U2855 09:N3259 20:U2729 10:N2655 21:U4576 13:Ursa Major Southern Spur 01:N3079 06:N2768 02:N3353 07:N3813 03:U6029 08:N3665 04:N2685 09:N3900 05:N2805 10:N3694 11:N4158 14:Coma-Sculptor Cloud 01:N4565=Coma I Cluster 11:I342/Maffei 02:N4725 12:N224=Local 04:N4258=Canes Venatici II 13:N55=Sculptor 05:N5194 14:N1313 06:N4631 15:N5128=Centaurus 07:N4736=Canes Venatici I 16:1424-46 09:N5457=M101 17:UA320 10:N3031=M81 18:N4517 15:Leo Spur 01:N3368=M96 Cluster 05:N3115 02:N3627=M66 06:N2683 03:N3423 09:N3675 04:N3486 10:N2681 11:N2541 16:Centaurus Spur 01:N5643 03:1418-46 02:N5483 04:N5121 05:N5398 17:Triangulum Spur 01:N1023 04:N628=M74 02:N278 05:N672 03:N1012 07:0102-06 18:Perseus Cloud 01:N1169 02:U2531 19:Pavo-Ara Cloud 01:N6744 05:I5201 02:N6300 06:N7424 03:N6221 07:N7713 04:N7090 08:N45 21:Leo Cloud 01:N3607 10:N3166 02:N3501 11:N3640 03:N3507 12:N3003 04:N3810 13:N3032 05:N3338 14:U5349 06:N3190 15:N2859 07:N3504 16:N2798 08:N3245 17:N2852 09:N3430 18:N2770 22:Crater Cloud 01:N4038 06:N3585 02:N3892 07:N3672 03:1213-11 08:N3818 04:N3923 09:N3952 05:N4105 10:N4030 11:N4123 23:Centaurus Cloud 01:N4696 05:I3253 02:N5064 06:N4588 03:N5266 07:N4835 04:N5333 08:I3896 09:N4976 24:Lynx Cloud 01:N2273 02:U3574 03:N2460 31:Antlia-Hydra Cloud 01:N3312 13:N2907 02:N3258=Antlia Cluster 14:N2781 03:N3347 15:N2992 04:N3095 16:N2855 05:N3089 18:N2974 06:N3256 19:N3023 07:N3250 20:U5249 08:1010-47 21:N2559 10:N3557 22:N2613 11:N3706 23:N2775 12:N2935 24:U3912 32:Cancer-Leo Cloud 01:N2750 04:N3367 33:Carina Cloud 01:N2842 03:0916-62 02:0913-601 04:N2417 34:Lepus Cloud 01:N2217 04:N1888 02:N1964 06:N2227 03:N1832 08:N2207 41:Virgo-Libra Cloud 01:N5846 Cluster 07:N5364 02:N5775 08:N5248 03:N5566 10:N5878 04:N5496 11:N4903 05:N5665 12:N5427 06:N5861 13:N5468 14:N5595 42:Canes Venatici-Camelopardalis Cloud 01:N5371 Cluster 08:N5322 02:N5198 12:U7168 03:N5676 13:N4589 04:N5448 14:N3735 05:N5783 16:N2276 06:N5473 17:N2336 07:N5678 18:N1530 19:U2824 43:Canes Venatici Spur 01:N5005 02:N5145 03:U9562 44:Draco Cloud 01:N5866=M102 05:N6340 02:N6015 06:N6236 03:U10736 07:N6412 04:N6207 08:N6643 45:Coma Cloud 01:N5012 51:Fornax Cluster / Eridanus Cloud 01:N1316=Fornax Cluster 08:N1407 03:N1097 09:UA87 04:N1332=Eridanus Cluster 10:UA95 05:N1302 11:N1421 06:N1187 13:0312-04 07:N1232 14:N1209 52:Cetus-Aries Cloud 01:N1084 08:N701 02:N1068=M77 09:N720 03:N936 10:N864 04:N1087 11:N676 05:N779 12:N488 06:N908 13:U1102 07:N584 14:N772 15:N691 53:Dorado Cloud 01:N1566 Cluster 12:N1800 02:N1559 13:N1532 03:N1672 14:N2188 04:N1947 15:0737-50 05:N1511 16:N2427 06:N2101 17:N2442 07:N1448 18:N3059 08:I1954 19:0756-76 09:N1291 20:N1637 10:N1808 21:N3136 11:0515-37 22:N2788 54:Antlia Cloud 01:N2997 03:N2835 02:N3175 05:N3511 55:Apus Cloud 01:N5833 03:N6438 02:N5612 04:1409-87 05:0000-80 61:Telescopium-Grus Cloud 01:N6868 Cluster 13:N7205 02:N6902 14:N7307 03:2041-46 15:I5269 04:N6707 Cluster 16:N7552=Grus 05:N6810 17:N7418 06:N7079 18:N134 07:N7196 19:N289 09:N7166 20:N150 10:N7049 21:N255 11:N7213 22:N210 12:N7144 23:N337 24:0049-00 62:Pavo-Indus Spur 01:N7083 02:N7192 03:N7125 63:Pisces Austrinus Spur 01:N7172 03:UA427 02:N7135 04:N7171 06:N7727 64:Pegasus Cloud 01:N7448 07:U12843 02:N7479 08:N7817 03:N7280 09:N7541 04:N7497 10:N7714 06:N7743 12:N7177 65:Pegasus Spur 01:N7331 04:N7640 02:N7332 06:N7814 03:N7741 07:U12423 66:Sagittarius Cloud 01:N6835 71:Serpens Cloud 01:N5962 04:N6070 02:N5970 05:U9977 03:U10086 06:N5961 72:Bootes Cloud 01:N5930 73:Ophiuchus Cloud 01:N6574 02:N6509 03:N6384 Section #9. WARRANTY This program is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind. All warranties are disclaimed, including damage to hardware and/or software from use of this product, and implied warranties of merchantability and fitness. In no event will I be liable to you for any damages, including lost profits, lost savings or other incidental or consequential damages arising out of your use or inability to use the program, or any other claim by any other party. In no case shall my liability exceed the registration fees paid for the right to use the software.