🌌 Interactive Solar System Simulator (Dockerized)

An interactive 3D solar system visualization built with Three.js and a Dockerized FastAPI backend.
The backend serves real planetary position data (ephemeris-based), while the frontend renders the Sun and major planets in a navigable 3D scene with controllable simulation speed.

🚧 Work in progress — visual scaling, lighting, and polish are actively being improved.

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Features

• Real-time planetary positions (API-driven)
• Accelerated time simulation (days per second)
• Interactive 3D camera controls (orbit & zoom)
• Textured planets + Saturn’s rings
• Client–server architecture (frontend + backend API)
• Runs consistently via Docker

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Tech Stack

Frontend

• JavaScript (ES Modules)
• Three.js
• WebGL

Backend

• Python
• FastAPI
• Skyfield (astronomical ephemeris)
• REST API (JSON)

DevOps

• Docker

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Run with Docker (Recommended)

1) Build the image

docker build -t solar-system .
docker run --rm -p 8000:8000 solar-system

Open in browser App: http://localhost:8000 API (example): http://localhost:8000/api/positions

Development Notes

The frontend fetches positions from the backend API and updates planet meshes each tick. Visual distance scaling and Sun lighting are being refined for better readability.

Planned Improvements

• Log-scaled / compressed distance model for outer planets
• Sun glow / bloom effect
• Orbit lines + labels
• Axial rotation and tilt
• Performance optimizations