Solar Eclipse Maestro Icon

Create a Gridded Set of Points File

To create a text file containing a gridded set of points corresponding to the local circumstances in Solar Eclipse Maestro you have to open the Gridded Set Points Generator dialog. This is with such a dataset that one can create Michael Zeiler maps.

  1. Choose Display > Gridded Set of Points File Generator…
  2. Select the solar eclipse and then fill in the required fields and select the output file format.
    Gridded Set Points File Generator Dialog
    The file format used by Michael Zeiler to generate his eclipse maps is optimized for the ArcGIS surface modeling workflow.
    A mauve bounding box showing the area where the computations occur will be overlaid on the eclipse map and that bounding box will fill up as the computations progress.
    When not in "Global Mode", the resolution is automatically increased by four times to help produce large scale detailled maps.
  3. Once done click on the Generate File button to create the file containing the corresponding gridded set of points. After the computations are completed, potentially a few hours, the Save File… button will be activated: you can then save your file at your designated location. The computations are CPU intensive and done with the greatest accuracy, the lunar limb profile and atmospheric refraction being recomputed at every point.
    To the right of the eclipse map, the computations status is updated about every one percent. The same applies to the progress bar and number of points already computed.
    A beep will let you know when the computations are completed and if Solar Eclipse Maestro is in the background when that occurs then its icon will bounce in the Dock.
    Note: with the regular settings the computations are likely going to take a few hours to generate a mesh of over fifty million points and a file of 10GB or more.

    The locations of longest eclipse/duration can also be computed automatically from this dialog by clicking the Compute Longest Duration Locations button. It takes about 3 to 5 minutes. Please take note that those locations are in fact an area and not a point source.

The stepsize increment in latitude and longitude must be between 0.000625 and 1.0 degrees.
The elevation must be between 0 and 500,000 meters.
The temporary file contaning the results of the computations is located inside the following folder: ~/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/