Deck Access Tool

The Deck Access tool allows you to compute access to a set of objects, not currently defined within the STK scenario, from a single object within the scenario. Deck access operations are useful when you have a large number of objects that no longer need to be in the STK scenario but for which you would like visibility information. Using deck access can greatly reduce load and save time for such scenarios and minimize graphical clutter.

The definitions of the objects outside of the scenario are supplied via external target deck file or from a star collection. The format of the file is defined by the class of object and the file extension. For example, you could use the deck access tool to compute access to a set of satellites, defined by two line element sets contained in a file, from a facility in the STK scenario. Star collections are defined by specifying a set of constraints on the contents of a star catalog. If an appropriate star collection is not available, click Create… to create a new collection with the desired set of constraints and star catalog.

To open the Deck Access tool, select Deck Access... from the Analysis menu.

Input

Use the Input options to define the access computation task.

Option	Description
Start Time and Stop Time	Indicate the time period over which the access opportunities will be computed.
Type	Indicate the type of object which is defined by the data in the specified file.
File	Displayed when an STK object class is selected as the type. Specify the file containing the target deck file, or use the button to browse for a file.The appropriate file extension will be the default file type in the file selection window.
Name	Displayed when a star collection is selected as the type. Specify the star collection to be used as the source of star object information. Use the Create… button to create a new star collection or to view/modify the configuration of existing star collections.

Note: All objects must be of the same type during a single deck access run.

The file extension is important to the deck access process since it is used to define the format of the data in the file. The file extensions and formats for each type are given below.

File extensions and formats

Warning: Star and Facility/Target files cannot have [Names] that are strictly numeric. STK attempts to read values that must be specified numerically in order. Since [Name] is an optional parameter, if an object [Name] is strictly numeric, STK will assume that the [Name] has been omitted and that the first number is the first required value (Right_Ascension for a star, or Latitude for facility/target).

For example, if you created a star file containing the following information:

123 1.23124 2.234124

STK would read it as:

In this example, the name of the star is supposed to be "123", and the file should have been read as:

To prevent this from happening, be sure you use names that contain at least one non-numeric character. For example, if you created a star file containing the same information, but you added an alphabetic character to the name, like so:

123b 1.23124 2.234124

STK would read it as:

which would be accurate.

Constraints

If the Specify Constraint Source option is ON, you can select an instance of the target deck class (set using the Select Target Deck class option) from which a set of access constraints will be copied. This set of constraints are associated with the target deck objects and used in the deck access computations.

Output

The results of the deck access, initiated by clicking Compute Accesses, may be presented in a report window or written directly to file. In any case, the format is defined by the DeckAccess report style associated with the object from which the Deck Access tool was launched.

Use the Sort and Output options here to define the presentation of deck access results.

Sort Options

Output Options