This solar system visualization features free navigation and animated planet orbits and rotations.

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Overview

This is a demo system created specifically to demonstrate the wide range of visualizations Eye-Sys is capable of implementing. While not scientifically accurate on the whole, the planet radii and average distances from the sun are accurate, as are the planetary rotation periods. The system visualizes the eight planets in the solar system, the Sun, and Pluto.

Due to the scale of the solar system, the planets are virtually invisible when viewing whole orbital paths in a single window. To make the visualization more interesting, scale controls were added to allow the user to scale the planet up to 200 times their actual size. The rotational periods of the planets are also scalable.

The Docking Display System bar contains the control panel with the planet, sun, and rotational period scales, as well as a radio button box that lets the user select the active planet. The 3D window will track the actively selected planet.

* Planet textures courtesy of James Hastings-Trew (www.planetpixelemporium.com)

Notes

• The system was implemented in units of kilometers.
  
  
• While all planetary orbits are elliptical to some degree, the orbits in this system are circular, using each planet's average distance from the sun as the radius. Pluto's highly eccentric and nearly 17-degree inclined orbit is shown as a circle contained in the solar system's orbital plane.
  
  
• The shadow cast from Saturn's main body onto its rings is part of the visualization. This is done with a combination of geometry primitives and state manager stencil settings.