Orbital View
When you click on a body (planet or moon) in the Operations Menu under the Active Vessels section it will load a 3D Geogebra figure of the system that body resides in. Only bodies that have active vessels or asteroids in orbit around them will be listed in the menu, but the option to choose the Kerbol System in general is always available from which you can navigate to any body. Any dotted orbital lines represent the trajectory being inside or behind an SOI bubble or atmosphere. It is dependent on your viewpoint and does not always mean the orbit is passing through the SOI or atmosphere. Although it may be hard to see at the scales normally depicted, the figure is being updated every second with the motion of all bodies/vessels/asteroids shown.
First, in order to affect the 3D figure it must be the active control, which means in some cases (like after changing a check box selection) you will have to click anywhere on it to give it focus. After that, you can do any of the following actions:
- Zoom - using the mouse wheel, the figure can be zoomed in and out
- Pan - holding Shift while pressing a mouse button and dragging will move the camera around the 3D space
- Rotate - clicking and holding a mouse button will allow you to rotate the view about the current center of focus. The rotation will continue if the mouse button is released while the mouse it still in motion. A single click will stop the spin
The figure is enclosed within a draw rectangle, which can be broken out of, with orbits and bodies being clipped from sight due to panning and zooming. If you can't bring them back into view, clicking the icon in the upper-right corner of the figure will reset it back to its initial load state.
Only left-clicking will select objects. Not all objects in the figure can be selected but the following can:
- Bodies - any planet or moon can be selected for more information (see Body Information Dialog) by clicking on the sphere that represents the body (not the SOI). In the case of small bodies that cannot be seen easily, clicking on the orbital line itself will reveal the location of the body, which can then be clicked on.
- Vessels/Asteroids - in the case of vessels/asteroids, you can always click on their orbit line to select them, or on their position if you can see it. Once a vessel or asteroid's orbit is selected, clicking on its position will bring you to its Vessel Details page.
Any names that are visible can be clicked on as well, which acts the same as selecting their position sphere.
You can control the information that is shown on the figure using the check boxes at the bottom, which have the following behaviors:
- Show Nodes - When selected, this option will display every Apoapse/Periapse (blue) and Ascending Node/Descending Node (green) node in the entire figure. When unselected, any nodes not set to display via a body's individual options will be hidden. Any orbit currently selected will also not have its nodes hidden. Nodes will not be displayed if orbits themselves are hidden
- Show Names - When selected, this option will display the name of every body, vessel and asteroid in the figure. When unselected, all names will be hidden except for any currently-selected orbit
- Show Orbits - When selected, this option will display the trajectories of all bodies, vessels and asteroids in the figure. When unselected, trajectories will be hidden, including any that are currently selected and any nodes that are currently visible.
When orbits are hidden, selecting an object will make them visible again. For planets/moons clicking on their location will hide the orbit. For vessels/asteroids clicking on their orbit will hide the node information that pops up, clicking on their orbit again will hide the orbit. This gives you the option to selectively display as many orbits as you want.
- Show Reference Line - This line points along the plane of the system and you can click on it to re-orient your view to a top-down perspective
If there are any vessels or asteroids currently in orbit around bodies in the system they will be loaded after the figure has initialized and in the lower-right corner will appear check boxes to let you declutter the view by showing/hiding only certain types of trajectories. Any types not loaded will be disabled.
Unlike vessels and asteroids, planets and moons do not have pages with additional details but instead you can learn more about them through the Body Information Dialog, which will always initially appear in the upper-left corner of the figure but can be moved around after it has been opened. Selecting a new body will update the dialog with new information. If the body has moons, you will be given the option to view its system figure, which gives you access to the system even if no vessels are in orbit there. If the body has Ap/Pe and/or AN/DN nodes you will be given the option to display them or hide them. This display option overrides and is ignored by the global nodes display setting. If the surface of the body has been mapped, you will be given the option to display a Surface Map view.