Topographic Scanner
Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2023 7:59 am
Overview
This spell creates a topographical scan of the area surrounding your Greater Sentinel, in the form of a list of heights ranging from 0 to 13. The area encompassed by the scan is a cylinder with a diameter of 29 blocks and a height of 13 blocks, centered on the Sentinel's position. The spell isn't really intended to be used on its own, but rather as part of a larger device that can convert the raw data produced by the scan into a readable format.
How to Use the Spell
First, you'll need to make a cleric circle that can read the main spell list from a focus. You'll also need an additional focus to hold the list of 665 offsets that make up the scan area. The list of offsets describes a circle with a diameter of 29 blocks, with a profile as follows:
Below is the main body of the spell. As written, the list of offsets should be placed in an item frame one block south of the circle's lower-north-west corner, and the akashic reference should be located one block diagonally north+up from the impetus. Feel free to change all of these relative positions to better suit your circle.
This is the unrolled section, which should be injected into the main body at the specified location. Note that only the patterns within the curly brackets should be unrolled - the first two patterns and the last pattern should be added to the list after the unrolling is done. The final list to be injected should contain the first two patterns, 35 copies of the bracketed patterns, and then the last one.
The final output of the spell is a list of 665 numbers, each representing the height of a specific X,Y position within the circle (the higher the block, the lower the number), along with single sublist at index 0 of the main list containing the X, Y, and Z position of the sentinel. This list will be saved into an akashic library at the provided location, using the provided key.
How to Read the Output
A list of 665 numbers is, of course, not exactly the most readable output. This is because it's not meant to be read by the player, but rather by a computer. The Block Reader from Advanced Peripherals can be attached to the bookshelf storing the output list to allow a computer to read the stored data. Then, each height can be converted into one of 13 different colors, and displayed as a pixel on a monitor in a location corresponding to its location in the actual scanned circle. The sublist containing the coordinates of the sentinel can be used to display some additional info on the monitor such as the location being scanned and the distance to the location.
CC:Tweaked is not necessarily the only way to translate the output data into a readable format. Integrated Dynamics, or really any other mod capable of reading block data, can probably provide an alternate way of transforming the output into something nice-looking. You could even make another Hex Casting spell to display the data, by rebuilding the scanned area at a specified location.
Keep in mind that the bookshelf storing the output data will need to be erased somehow if you want to run another scan. My setup using CC:Tweaked does this by breaking and replacing it with a turtle, but there are plenty of other options.
This spell creates a topographical scan of the area surrounding your Greater Sentinel, in the form of a list of heights ranging from 0 to 13. The area encompassed by the scan is a cylinder with a diameter of 29 blocks and a height of 13 blocks, centered on the Sentinel's position. The spell isn't really intended to be used on its own, but rather as part of a larger device that can convert the raw data produced by the scan into a readable format.
How to Use the Spell
First, you'll need to make a cleric circle that can read the main spell list from a focus. You'll also need an additional focus to hold the list of 665 offsets that make up the scan area. The list of offsets describes a circle with a diameter of 29 blocks, with a profile as follows:
Code: Select all
O O O O
| O O O
| O O
| O
| O
| O
| O
| O
| O
| O
| O
| O
| O
| O
X - - - - - - - - - - - - - O
Code: Select all
{
Lesser Fold Reflection // |
Vector Reflection +Z // | this section finds the itemframe for the offset list
Additive Distillation // |
Entity Purification
Scribe's Purification
Huginn's Gambit
Consideration
Consideration
// unrolled section gets injected here
Numerical Reflection (0)
Numerical Reflection (19)
Gemini's Gambit
Numerical Reflection (19)
Flock's Gambit
Thoth's Gambit
Bookkeeper's Gambit (v)
Muninn's Reflection
Locate Sentinel
Vector Disintegration
Numerical Reflection (3.0)
Flock's Gambit
Speaker's Distillation
Lesser Fold Reflection // |
Vector Reflection +Z // |
Vector Reflection +Y // | this section finds the akashic reference
Additive Distillation // |
Additive Distillation // |
Consideration
Consideration
// library key goes here
Rotation Gambit
Akasha's Gambit
}
Code: Select all
Bookkeeper's Gambit (v)
Muninn's Reflection
{{{
Speaker's Decomposition
Locate Sentinel
Additive Distillation
Gemini Decomposition
Vector Reflection -Y
Archer's Distillation
Gemini Decomposition
Identity Purification
Jester's Gambit
Numerical Reflection (2)
Augur's Purification
Vector Reflection -Y
Numerical Reflection (13)
Multiplicative Distillation
Additive Distillation
Augur's Exaltation
Subtractive Distillation
Length Purification
Integration Distillation
}}}
Huginn's Gambit
How to Read the Output
A list of 665 numbers is, of course, not exactly the most readable output. This is because it's not meant to be read by the player, but rather by a computer. The Block Reader from Advanced Peripherals can be attached to the bookshelf storing the output list to allow a computer to read the stored data. Then, each height can be converted into one of 13 different colors, and displayed as a pixel on a monitor in a location corresponding to its location in the actual scanned circle. The sublist containing the coordinates of the sentinel can be used to display some additional info on the monitor such as the location being scanned and the distance to the location.
CC:Tweaked is not necessarily the only way to translate the output data into a readable format. Integrated Dynamics, or really any other mod capable of reading block data, can probably provide an alternate way of transforming the output into something nice-looking. You could even make another Hex Casting spell to display the data, by rebuilding the scanned area at a specified location.
Keep in mind that the bookshelf storing the output data will need to be erased somehow if you want to run another scan. My setup using CC:Tweaked does this by breaking and replacing it with a turtle, but there are plenty of other options.