Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000 10:20:08 -1000 (HST) From: "Hubert T. Yamada" <yamada@shark.ifa.hawaii.edu> To: j mckitrick <jcm@FreeBSD-uk.eu.org> Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: computer systems in movies Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0008070959550.2893-100000@shark.ifa.hawaii.edu> In-Reply-To: <20000807153046.A6595@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org>
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On Mon, 7 Aug 2000, j mckitrick wrote: > In movies with hi-tech or research premises, we often see > sophisticated computer programs running on state of the art terminals. Now, > obviously, many times these are simply made-up special effects. But, are > there any REAL programs out there that inspired them? For example, > GUI-based real-time 3D molecule displays, frequency analyzers, real-time > systems displays (like for satellites) or are all of these simply works of > fiction? If they *do* exist, do they run on proprietary OS's? Unix? SGI > workstations? Speaking as someone who develops instrument control software for large telescopes, I can tell you that most of what you see movie observatories has no relationship to reality. You wouldn't believe how ugly most real observatory control systems are. Commonly, there are GUI interfaces that have a lot of buttons and text-entry fields, to control the operation of the telescope. Command-line tools are quite common. The observer generally works separately from the telescope operator, and has a real-time display of the image that he has just taken. The telescope operator normally has no knowledge of the science, and the observer has minimal knowledge of telescope operations. Generally, most of the work that is actually done at the telescope is simply examining the image, changing color-tables for the image, and examining line-cuts through an image. In order to insure that all of the necessary data is present and is of good quality. Generally people do not do any sort of data reduction while observing. It really doesn't make any sense to do so, because telescope time is very valuable, so you don't want to waste any of your telescope time doing things that can be done later. What you want to do in real-time are things that can't fixed later, such as making sure that you have the best possible focus, insuring that your image is properly centered on any optical elements (not as trivial as it sounds), insuring that your exposure time is correct, and generally insuring that you get everything that you need to reduce the data. As far as the software, most of it is custom-built, and based on freely-available software. There is much less commercial software than you might think. It generally runs on unix workstations (usually Sun or HP, though linux is becoming more popular) though there are some NT systems too. I've never seen FreeBSD running at any telescope, though I'm doing my best to change that. Hubert -- Hubert Yamada, University of Hawaii, Institute for Astronomy phone: (808)956-6648 e-mail: yamada@newton.ifa.hawaii.edu OR yamada@hawaii.edu WWW: http://ccd.ifa.hawaii.edu/~yamada/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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