Isn't it getting really crowded at Sun-Earth ☀️ 🌎 Lagrange Point 2 (L2)? That's where #Gaia and #JWST already are and #ESAEuclid is now heading as well. 🛰️🛰️🛰️

Well, #GaiaSky has the answer: it's not. Distances are to scale.

#astrodon #astronomy #ESA

https://mastodon.social/@jumpinglangur/110654432546320141

https://zah.uni-heidelberg.de/gaia/outreach/gaiasky

#GaiaSky is an #Opensource #3D #universe #simulator with support for more than a billion objects.

Here a short session in #GaiaSky VR, exploring the stars in motion and wandering through space.

The sparse virtual textures also work in VR, and they are quite impressive.

#GaiaSky #VR #Universe #VirtualReality #ESAGaia

The UI interaction with touch controllers already works quite well in #GaiaSky VR. I'm using the gamepad UI without any tweaks right now. When I implemented this UI, I expected it to be useful also in VR, and it is.

#VirtualReality #VR #OculusRift

The VR GUI in #GaiaSky, now in VR 😂
Interaction with VR controllers TBD.

I'm starting to experiment with a proper 3D UI for #GaiaSky VR. The interaction of the VR controllers with the UI elements is probably gonna be the hardest part.

📢 📢 📢 Today we publish #GaiaSky 3.4.0! This release includes support for virtual textures, plus some QOL improvements and a lot of buf fixes.

Release notes:
https://gaia.ari.uni-heidelberg.de/gaiasky/files/releases/3.4.0.80b36aa6a/releasenotes.html

Downloads:
https://zah.uni-heidelberg.de/gaia/outreach/gaiasky/downloads/

Docs:
https://gaia.ari.uni-heidelberg.de/gaiasky/docs/3.4.0/

#GaiaSky - #astronomy visualization desktop and #VR program 🌌
https://www.linuxlinks.com/gaia-sky-astronomy-visualization-desktop-vr-program/

A short session testing virtual textures in #GaiaSky with a gamepad. In the video, I fly over the Earth, which is mapped with a 64K surface and a 32K topography (elevation) virtual texture. Performance is a bit of a mess now, unfortunately...

Yet more updates on sparse virtual textures. #GaiaSky supports now multiple channels per virtual textures (diffuse, normal, height, specular, emissive, metallic, roughness, cloud). Also, multiple SVTs can live on the same scene and use the same cache.

Using 32 bits per channel in the indirection buffer enables trees with 31 levels. On the Earth, 31-level tiles cover less than 1 sq. cm, which, with tile resolutions over 10x10, provides sub-mm resolution.

In the video, the tree has 10 levels.

#GaiaSky #SVT #SparseVirtualTextures #VirtualTextures #OpenGL #graphics #ComputerGraphics #Programming

Sparse virtual textures are now working, with no filtering artifacts and properly mipmapped indirection buffer. Some rendering artifacts still remain, but hopefully we can iron them out.
#GaiaSky #SVT #rendering #OpenGL #virtualtextures

Some additional progress with sparse virtual textures in #GaiaSky. Now the shaders already translate virtual to physical texture coordinates. Still a ton to do!

The sparse vritual textures (SVT) development in #GaiaSky is progressing nicely. Now, the cache and indirection buffers are already updated correctly. The last piece of the puzzle is implementing SVT texturing in the shaders.

The sparse vritual textures (SVT) development in #GaiaSky is progressing nicely. Now, the cache and indirection buffers are already updated correctly. The last piece of the puzzle is implementing SVT texturing in the shaders.

Implementing sparse virtual textures into #GaiaSky. The view determination shader seems to be working!

Implementing sparse virtual textures into #GaiaSky. The view determination shader seems to be working!

📢📢📢 Bugfix release! #GaiaSky 3.3.2 is out today, containing a game-breaking bug fix for Windows, and a few minor improvements.

Release notes: https://gaia.ari.uni-heidelberg.de/gaiasky/files/releases/3.3.2.b5202d46f/releasenotes.html
Downloads: https://zah.uni-heidelberg.de/gaia/outreach/gaiasky

Just the Earth.
#GaiaSky