Topic: OpenUniverse is an application for simulating the Solar System's bodies in 3D

[Software Santa]

OpenUniverse is an application for simulating the Solar System's bodies in 3D

For Linux and Windows systems.

What is OpenUniverse?
     
   Strictly spoken it's a piece of software, simulating the Solar System's bodies in 3D on your Windows or Linux PC (will work in most *NIX's as well). In difference to quite a few other programs it does so in realtime. Meaning you can view all the planets, moons and spaceships move along their paths, trace them, follow them, orbit them and even control them (time and spaceship contol). And you won't have to fight your way through hordes of green, slimey and one-eyed aliens for that ;-)

History
     
OpenUniverse (OU) was formely known as Solar System Simulator (Ssystem). It was initially released on Nov 1997 with the intention to create a rotating Earth display on a main stream PC. Since these early roots a continuing development and expansion has taken place. Was version 1.0 only aware of the major bodies (planets), version 1.2 added a whole bunch of moons. Solar System v1.6 then added more ways of movement for the user's eye (camera) within Solar System's virtual universe and last but not least better textures for a lot of bodies. This version, called OpenUniverse (OU) finally has been renamed to underline the concept behind the further development of the program: Open for the whole Universe, not just the solar system. Open to use, extend and change. Finally open for all users, programmers and for you.


Hardware/Software Requirements
     


    - Linux/Unix or Windows 95/98/NT/2000
    - 3D card (not required but strongly recommended)
          any card with decent OpenGL support, i.e.:
                 - Voodoo Graphics, Voodoo2 and Voodoo Rush
                 - Riva 128
                 - Riva TNT/TNT2
                 - GeForce / GeForce2
    - Mesa 3.2 or above (Other OpenGL 1.1 compliant libraries should work)
    - GLUT 3.7 (included in Mesa 3.2 Demos distribution)
    - Independent JPEG Group's JPEG library
    - GLUI 2.0 if you want the GUI (currently in beta).

    If you just download the binaries you won't need most of the above. A working OpenGL driver should be enough (hopefully)


License
     


OpenUniverse is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License. Basically it means OU is free. However, keep in mind i'm not the copyright holder of most of the texture maps included. 


Well, as i said above OU is free but if you really like it and you think i deserve some support i'd accept hardware donations

http://openuniverse.sourceforge.net/