Solar System Simulation

I am moving some of my projects from my google sites to this blog. This is one of those projects.

Solar System Simulation

View the solar system in all its glory! This project was a simulation of the solar system with an accelerated time scale. However, the time scales are in proportion to each other. You will be stunned at the speed with which Jupiter and a few of the outer planets rotate about their axis.

The textures applied to the planets and the Earth's moon are authentic and are based on real images of the planets.

Also, 1 day of real time is equivalent to 1 second of simulation time.

Platform

Operating Systems: RHEL 4 and Windows XP Professional

Language: C++

Graphics Library: Opengl, GLUT

Compiler: GCC 3.2, Visual C++ 8.0 (Visual Studio 2005)

System Requirements

A Windows or Linux operating system running on Graphics hardware that can support simple OpenGL commands.

Download

The Windows version is here (will be updated soon).

Instructions to run the program:

Initial Display consists of all the points and the map.

'a' or 'A' ------------------------- zoom into the map

'z' or 'Z' ------------------------ zoom out of the map

Left Arrow --------------------------- move map left

Right Arrow ------------------------ move map Right

Up Arrow ---------------------------- move map Up

Down Arrow ----------------------- move map Down

't' or 'T' ---------------------- Toggle Textures on/off

'n' or 'N' ------------------ Toggle Planet Names on/off

'm' or 'm' ---------------------- Toggle Moons on/off

'ESC' ----------------------------- Exit the program

Things to Remember:

Saturn has Rings around it.

The names of the planets are visible above them.

All the moons and planets have been implemented.

The map rotates about the center of the display and not the center of the map itself.