3D Solar System Viewer

About

3D Solar System Viewer is a Vulkan application born from the idea of creating a tool for educational purposes, able to perform what is usually impossible to do on a screen: allow the user to have an idea of ​​the scale of the planets, the distances and the movements they perform. The large differences between planets and celestial motions prevent everything from being represented on the same spatial and temporal scale. To overcome this limitation, the user can decide to focus on particular planets and characteristics of the solar system.

Usage

The user can interact with the application through the following commands:

• A:    Move left
• D:    Move right
• W:    Move forward
• S:    Move backward
• R:    Move up
• F:    Move down
The above movements can also be performed using the left stick of the gamepad.

• ←:    Rotate left
• →:    Rotate right
• ↑:    Rotate up
• ↓:    Rotate down
• Q:    Rotate clockwise
• E:    Rotate counterclockwise
The above movements can also be performed using the right stick of the gamepad.

Additional actions can be performed using the appropriate buttons.

Build

On UNIX-like systems, the application can be built using the given makefile:

foo@bar:~$ make

To build and run:

foo@bar:~$ make run

For frequent testing, it is recommended to keep the development environment clean:

foo@bar:~$ make run clean

Contribution

The project has been developed by Alberto Boffi and Riccardo Nava as project of the Computer Graphics Master's course at Politecnico di Milano.

A special thanks goes to Grecya D'Angiò for providing the data on the planets, the creation of the logo and for many useful tips.

License

This project falls under the MIT license.

Texture Credit: Wikimedia Commons