Interactive starchart written in Java and using JOGL as graphics engine. While teaching at West University of Timisoara, Romania, I delivered a course on Computer Graphics (2007-2011, 2016-2020) focusing on OpenGL applications by using Java. This project grew over the years driven by my interest in simulations of the Universe and I have incorporated some of it in the practical work I asked students to do as part of their 2D graphics labs. Some of the material can still be found on wikiversity. The current version allows users to move around, zoom in/out, click objects and visualize data (2D for deep sky, and 3D for solar system objects).
- To move around use arrow keys
- To zoom in/out press 'i' and 'o'
- To show/hide constellation lines press 'l'
- To show/hide object names press 'h'
- To reset the scene press 'r'
- To move forward in time press '>'
- To move backward in time press '<'
- To exit the program press 'ESC'
- To show information about the planets click on them
- To show information on deep sky objects click in the left-bottom area of where their name appears on the map
The text in the application is in Romanian, but I think some of the planet names and astronomical units are similar to their English counterparts. Over time I took code fragments (in some cases written in other languages like Basic or C) and datasets from various public sources. In some cases I forgot from where so I apologies in advance from that, no harm intended. In addition some websites are no longer accessible. Where I did wrote my source it can be found in the files.
The current working version uses the following:
- Java 1.6
- JOGL (see jars in the lib/ folder)
- jlibeps (see jar in the lib/ folder)
The images.zip file contains the necessary images. They should be unzipped in an images folder alongside the other project folders.
Compile the code. I used Eclipse for developing and maintaning it.
There are two main applications.
- The 2D interactive polar projection map, basically a starchard. Run it by executing:
java PolarProjectionMap
- The eps starmap generator (also for the entire sky in polar projection). Run it by executing:
java starmap.StarMapGenerator
NOTE in the StarMapGenerator's case see the corresponding java class for details as the actual line used to generate the eps file is commented out (see main method).