
QUICK LUNEX INFO

==============================================================================
LUNEX for POV-Ray (LUNar EXplorer) is a FREEWARE program script designed to
render high-quality, photo-realistic images of the moon from virtually any
perspective using the free, open-source POV-Ray v3.7.0 ray-tracing software.

To use LUNEX, you will need the POV-Ray rendering software to run the scripts
and optionally a simple graphics editor to add any desired text labels to the
rendered images or diagrams.

For information on POV-Ray, visit
the official POV-Ray web site at:
https://www.povray.org

LUNEX and POV-Ray are both open-source FREEWARE - No cost, ads or malware.

The program serves as a virtual telescope or spacecraft.

LUNEX is ideal for making customized lunar charts and diagrams for hobby or
educational purposes. It does not apply text labels. It simply renders your
customized user-defined 3D lunar scenes. Any simple image editor can be used
to easily add text labels to the rendered images.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IMPORTANT NOTES:

Photo-realistic 3D rendering is extremely resource (RAM/CPU/GPU) intensive and
rendering times are strongly dependent on your scene settings and system speed
and architecture.

For the best 3D rendering detail, high-resolution texture maps are used and
make up the bulk of the LUNEX package. The entire LUNEX program script itself
is only about 25 KB, but it is powerful for its size.

If you have POV-Ray v3.7 installed and working, then this folder should
contain everything needed to begin rendering immediately out-of-the-box with-
out any complicated setup procedure.

By default, this entire LUNEX rendering package is portable and fully self-
contained and this home folder should be able to be put just about anywhere.

LUNEX was tested using POV-Ray v3.7 on Microsoft Windows 7 to Windows 10.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When orienting the camera or eye, the moon is initially treated as if it was
a globe sitting on a table directly in front of you (at 238857 miles away).

The sun moves clockwise in a circle around you from 0 to 360 degrees, where
zero degrees is directly ahead and 90 degrees is directly to the right, etc.
The phase angle is the position of the sun on the relative phase circle.

---------------------------------
RELATIVE PHASE ANGLES

New           =   0 deg / 360 deg
First Quarter =  90 deg
Full          = 180 deg
Last Quarter  = 270 deg
New           = 360 deg / 0 deg

The lunar phase is always relative to the selenographic longitude of the
camera or eye.

Up/down/left/right movements and rotations assume you are looking at the
moon from the front, as we see it from Earth.

Mathematically, we are looking at the moon through a geocentric telescope
from the mean lunar distance of 238857 miles. This is the default view.

You can control the precise lunar phase angle and the scene will be rendered
with natural-looking shading accordingly (in Render Mode 2).

The virtual telescope can also zoom in for a closer look at certain details.

Other lunar perspectives are possible by rotating the moon and/or relocating
the camera to allow viewing the moon from an external perspective that can
only be realized by a spacecraft.

The lunar globe can be rotated on its axis and/or the view centered on any
given selenographic coordinates anywhere from pole-to-pole over the entire
lunar surface.

If you move the camera (eye) the program automatically accounts for the 3D
distance and perspective change and the curvature of the lunar surface and
proper phase shading as viewed from the new location.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
There is a subfolder within this LUNEX home folder containing completed
scripts that can be copied, run, studied and edited any way you wish.

That folder is called:
! FINAL-SCRIPTS-AND-RENDERS

To run one of the scripts in POV-Ray, simply copy it into this
LUNEX home folder and execute it from here.

Only work with copies of the templates to protect against the
event of accidental loss or damage to the originals.

================================
TO MAKE A NEW CUSTOM LUNEX SCENE

1 ... Make a copy of the 'DEFAULT-SCENE-TEMPLATE.pov' file in the LUNEX
      home folder and rename that copy to whatever name you wish to give
      your POV-Ray rendering.

2 ... Replace the default full moon settings in the SCENE DEFINITION PANEL
      with the settings required to create your custom scene.  Experiment
      with the settings until you find the scene you want.


=============
QUICK EXAMPLE

Here is a quick example to render the far (hidden) side of the moon.

Copy the 'DEFAULT-SCENE-TEMPLATE.pov' file and
then rename that copy to  'lunar-far-side.pov'

The camera latitude and longitude settings refer to the selenographic
coordinates at the center of the rendered spherical lunar view.

In this case, all that is needed is to change the longitude of the camera
(eye) to the opposite side of the moon from the default location by chang-
ing just the camera longitude value from 0 to +180 degrees.

The default CamLon = +000.0 is centered on the geocentric near side, so
we change it to +180.0 degrees to move to the direct opposite (far) side
to see the moon as viewed from the other side looking back.


To do this, simply change the CamLon declaration from:

  #declare CamLon  = +000.0; // -W/E+

to

  #declare CamLon  = +180.0; // -W/E+


Rendering the scene in Mode 1 will render the hidden side of the moon.
in fine detail very quickly.

Rendering the scene in Mode 2 will render the hidden side of the moon
in finer, more accurate detail, but will take longer to render.

Experimentation and studying the rendered examples is recommended to get
a feel for how the numbers work.

It takes very few changes to the defaults to obtain very different views,
but it gets easier with practice.


