Distance Limit

[Unreal2004]

Have a question, is there a way in UB2 or in the upcoming UB3 to set a distance limit where objects will be deleted if they go past it?  I have many simulations where I want LOTS of dust formation but quite a bit also flies out of the system but is still simulated and eating up CPU time.  In one case I wanted to make a dusty asteroid belt but over time I had a biiiiiiiiiiig ball of dust flying out from the star that slowed the simulation to a crawl.  In that case I would have loved to set a distance of oh lets say 20AU where anything past that is deleted automatically to keep the CPU busy with more important things 

[Hellpotatoe]

Good idea bro.

[smjjames]

Good point since over time, dust can get flung out to far distances and currently the only way to erase it is to delete ALL of the dust, which is kind of pointless if you don't want to remove all of the dust.

[Unreal2004]

Or maybe put in an option to delete all dust/objects past a certain distance from the selected object?  That might be another option.

Hope the devs see this

[Chris]

Or maybe put in an option to delete all dust/objects past a certain distance from the selected object?  That might be another option.

Hope the devs see this

The devs did see this and they have taken a note, because it is a really good suggestion.

[Dan Dixon]

It's an interesting idea... and technically quite do-able.

The challenge with almost every feature like this is how you expose it to the user in the interface (where do you put the button that does this and explain it's use)?

A distance from a specific object after which all is deleted is an interesting idea.

Any other thoughts on implementation?

(And what Chris said)

[vh]

Attached a image of what i think the selection panel might look like/ what options it might have

I was thinking that instead of limited to circles, it should be able to have cuboids and other shapes.

And instead of it being a delete command, it should be a select command. This allows greater flexibility to select objects so that you can delete them/explode them/or hide all of them/turn them to dust instead of just removal.

Also you should be able to add two selections and/or subtract from them, just like in paint.net and/or photoshop if you've used those programs.

[Hellpotatoe]

Attached a image of what i think the selection panel might look like/ what options it might have

I was thinking that instead of limited to circles, it should be able to have cuboids and other shapes.

And instead of it being a delete command, it should be a select command. This allows greater flexibility to select objects so that you can delete them/explode them/or hide all of them/turn them to dust instead of just removal.

Also you should be able to add two selections and/or subtract from them, just like in paint.net and/or photoshop if you've used those programs.

Cool Stuff Bro

[Unreal2004]

I like mudkipz suggestion as well, there would be cases where you would want a pancake shape limit such as 300 AUx2AU to keep things in the ecliptic, this way you could keep all the long period objects that arent too inclined but eliminate the majority of objects that get thrown out of the system.

[vh]

well then in a case where you want a pancake shape we can use an ellipsoid

x^2/a^2+y^2/b^2+z^2/c^2=1


and have 3 boxes for a, b, and c