Space Engine
Space Engine is a technology developed by Russian programmer Vladimir Romanyuk simulation. It represents, like Celestia, galaxies, stars, planets, etc. in three-dimensional space represents a fundamental principle of Space Engine is the procedural generation of content. Currently the software is in beta status.
Functions
Space Engine visualized objects the size of an asteroid to that of a galaxy. The software calculates the surfaces of celestial bodies with three-dimensional terrain to within a few meters, so as to allow the user, such as planets to explore down to the surface. Displayed information includes mountains and craters. For the stars in the immediate solar neighborhood data are used by the Hipparcos satellite. In contrast to these real stars of the rest of the galaxy is procedurally filled with fictitious stars that have realistic characteristics and distances from one another. So about 200 billion stars are generated for the Milky Way, each of which has its own planetary system. For other galaxies and globular clusters realistic star collections are created. The seamless fusion of real and procedural content, there are no artificial boundaries more due to lack of data. Romanyuk trying to represent space as realistic as possible, which among other things shows that, for example, planetary orbits are tested for web stability before they are generated within several rounds of programming.
Contents:
- Almost all of the heavenly bodies: asteroids, comets, moons, planets, stars, star clusters, nebulae, galaxies
- Procedural generation of stars, planets and their surface
- Free movement in space
- Control over the timing
- Integration of catalogs ( Hipparcos for stars, NGC / IC galaxies, star clusters, etc.)
- Find objects by name
- Realistic visual representation of galaxies
- Realistic representation of planetary rings
- Representation of planetary orbits and object names
- Various optical effects: lens effects, shadows, ...
Limitations
- Program errors and crashes, as it is still a beta
- High system requirements, if planetary surfaces are to be displayed
- The appearance of the planet is similar for the same types of planets as a whole (but not in detail)
- Very few nebulae
Further development
Since the simulation is still in beta, it is still being developed and added new content. So Vladimir Romanyuk were in their own forum known to be planned, for example, in addition to the free Explore even a " spaceship mode " introduce, where the spaceship of gravitational and other effects should be affected. Furthermore, more gaseous nebulae are to be involved and take place procedural generation of galaxies, so that the universe can be displayed on even larger scales. According Romanyuk Space Engine can display 400,000 galaxies and more without difficulty. A full list of scheduled content can be found on the official forum.