EVE Corporation - Page 985

When making this post, I tried to differentiate (lololol) between d-istance (one "measurement" of r) and D-istance (the column on the overview that keeps spitting out r's). If you plop down a coordinate system somewhere in space, then when the overview spits out an r, you can mark it on the coordinate system.

The easiest frame of reference to use would be your ship (since it's the viewport for making measurements) sitting at 0m/s (since having an accelerating frame in the problem just complicates the math). So using that frame, the overview gives you an r for a Drake. You move your camera around until you can see the Drake clearly (and track its current phi and theta, relative to your ship) and mark the current r on your coordinate system.

Then you just keep doing it. Every time the overview spits out an r, you mark it down. Eventually you'll be able to derive every other number the overview gives since you're basically approximating r(t). You can, of course, use other frames and just convert between the measuring frame (your ship) and your coordinate frame etc. etc. blah blah blah :EFFORT:.

Now obviously if someone sits you down at a desk and gives you an r or even gives you an overview printout of a bunch of r's, then you can't do shit - which is basically what you were referring to.