Version 1.5 - 3rd December 2007
Version 1.5 of AstroGrav has several new and improved features, together with many minor user interface improvements and bug fixes. This information is intended for existing users who are already familiar with AstroGrav and want to quickly find out about the main changes. This is a free upgrade for customers who have already purchased a license, so that all you need to do is download Version 1.5 and use it in place of your old version. If you have any problems with this new version, please don't hesitate to contact us so that we can help you out.
Version 1.5 of AstroGrav has the following new and improved features.
Full Screen Mode
Version 1.5 of AstroGrav includes a new animated and interactive full screen mode for model windows. To use this, bring a model window to the front, start the simulation running, and select the View / Full Screen Mode command. The model window excluding menu bar, tool bar, and status bar will then be expanded to cover the entire screen, so that you effectively have an animated and interactive screensaver. Full screen mode is interactive in the sense that all the operations listed with the Help / Model Navigation Guide command are available. To exit full screen mode, just press any key.
Sample Simulations
Version 1.5 of AstroGrav includes the following updates to the Solar System sample simulations.
- 6 recently discovered moons of Saturn have been added.
- 2 recently discovered moons of Pluto have been added.
- 15 recently discovered large Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) have been added.
- Comet Holmes (17P) has been added.
- The start date has been changed from 01/01/2007 to 01/01/2008.
The non-English sample simulations have also had their windows positioned to make much better use of larger screen sizes by minimizing the overlap of windows. On smaller screen sizes, the software automatically respositions the windows so that they are always entirely visible, although with some window overlap. This corresponds to the improvement that was made to the English sample simulations in version 1.4.3.
Performance Improvements
Version 1.5 of AstroGrav includes the following performance improvements.
- Some simulations now evolve faster.
- The display of trees has been speeded up.
- The display of objects with phases has been speeded up on model windows.
Other Improvements
Version 1.5 of AstroGrav also has many other minor improvements and bug fixes, including the following.
- The accuracy of the evolution of many simulations has been improved.
- The curious and unwanted graphic effects on phases very close to 0.5 (eg half Moon) has been removed.
- A bug has been fixed that caused changes made with the Evolve / Settings... command to only be undoable and redoable if the simulation was evolving.
- A bug has been fixed that caused the Evolve / Settings... command to record changes to the time step unit even if the evolve settings dialog was cancelled.