Settings and configuration
Gaia Sky can be configured using the on-screen control panel and preferences dialog. However, very few features are not represented in the GUI, so you may need to dive deep into the properties file.
Graphics settings
Please refer to the Graphics configuration chapter.
User interface
The User Interface
section allows the user to set the language and the
theme of the user interface.
One can select between a choice of languages using the language drop-down. There are currently three visual themes available:
dark-green
, black and green theme.dark-blue
, black and blue theme.dark-orange
, orange and blue theme.bright-green
, a bright theme with greenish tones.night-red
, a red theme for low-light environments.
Additionally, all themes are also available for HiDPI (high pixel density) screens. To enable this,
check the Scale UI (HiDPI checkbox in the Preferences dialog, Interface tab, or add a the -x2
suffix
to the theme name in the properties file.
Performance
In the Performance
tab you can select how many background worker threads can be
used by Gaia Sky. By default, multithreading is enabled and the number of threads
is equal to the number of CPU coures (setting let the program decide
).
More detailed info can be found in the performance section.
Draw distance
Certain big datasets use levels of detail (LOD) to prevent data clutter and make them manageable. Using this setting the user can adjust the draw distance, allowing more stars into the viewport. Refer to the Draw distance (levels of detail) section for more info.
Controls
You can see the key associations in the Controls
tab. Controls are
not editable. Check out the Controls documentation
to know more.
Screenshot configuration
You can take screenshots anytime when the application is running by
pressing F5
. There are two screenshot modes available: *
Simple
, the classic screenshot of what is currently on screen, with
the same resolution. * Advanced
, where you can define the
resolution of the screenshots.
Additionally, the output format (either JPG
or PNG
) and the quality (in
case of JPG
format) can also be set in the configuration file, usually
located in $GS_CONFIG/global.properties
(see folders). The keys to modify are:
screenshot.format
screenshot.quality
Frame output
There is a feature in Gaia Sky that enables the output of every
frame as a JPG
or PNG
image. This is useful to produce videos. In order to
configure the frame output system, use the Frame output
tab. There
you can select the output folder, the image prefix name, the output
image resolution (in case of Advanced
mode) and the target frame rate.
Additionally, the output format (either JPG
or PNG
) and the quality (in
case of JPG
format) can also be set in the configuration file, usually
located in $GS_CONFIG/global.properties
(see folders). The keys to modify are:
graphics.render.format
graphics.render.quality
Note
Use F6
to activate the frame output mode and start saving each frame as an image. Use F6
again to deactivate it.
When the program is in frame output mode, it does not run in real time but it adjusts the internal clock to produce as many frames per second as specified here. You have to take it into account when you later use your favourite video encoder (ffmpeg) to convert the frame images into a video.
Camera recording
Here you can set the desired frames per second to capture the camera paths. If your device is not fast enough in producing the specified frame rate, the application will slow down while recording so that enough frames are captured. Same behaviour will be uploading during camera playback.
You can also enable automatic frame recording during playback. This will automatically activate the frame output system (see Frame output) during a camera file playback.
360 mode
Here you can define the cube map side resolution for the 360 mode.
With this mode a cube map will be rendered (the whole scene in all
direction +X
, -X
, +Y
, -Y
, +Z
, -Z
) and then
it will be transformed into a flat image using an equirectangular
projection. This allows for the creation of 360 (VR) videos.

360 mode in Gaia Sky
Data
As of version 1.0.0
you can use the Data tab to select the
catalogues to load. You can select as many catalogs as you want.
The Data tab can also be used to toggle between high and low accuracy positions and to enalbe a catalog selection screen at startup.
Gaia
Here you can choose the attitude of the satellite. You can either use
the real attitude
(takes a while to load but will ensure that Gaia
points to where it should) and the NSL
, which is an analytical
implementation of the nominal attitude of the satellite. It behaves the
same as the real thing, but the observation direction is not ensured.
System
Use this tab to enable and disable the debug info using the Show debug info
checkbox. When the
debug info is enabled, the program prints the frames per
second and other useful information at the top-right of the screen.
Also, you can enable anonymous usage reporting, which connects to an analytics web service to build up some usage statistics. Only the events of application startup and shutdown are reported, and they are totally anonymous. This setting is disabled by default to protect the user’s privacy.
Finally, if you want to revert to the default settings, click on the Reload default settings
button.