#Space engineers download a map software

“We considered using existing graphics engines for visualizing the data, but in the end, I developed one specifically for the project. A major challenge is ensuring smooth transition from one database to the next. You can also see huge portions of the cosmic web – the filamentary large-scale structures that extend across the universe – coming into existence over billions of years, based on simulations from a data set called IllustrisTNG which consists of 30 billion simulated particles. You can watch the Milky Way Galaxy and its future collision with the Andromeda galaxy, our galactic neighbor also known as M31. VIRUP also renders data sets of contemporary and scientifically robust simulations based on research. Other databases include a repertoire of over 3000 satellites orbiting the Earth, as well as various skins and textures to render the objects. There’s also the Open Exoplanet Catalog which aggregates various sources of exoplanet data. The Planck mission involves a satellite which measures the universe’s first light after the Big Bang called the cosmic microwave background radiation. The Gaia data of the Milky Way Galaxy consists of 1.5 billion light sources. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey consists of over 50 million galaxies and 300 million objects in general. “VIRUP is precisely a way of making all of our astrophysical data accessible to everyone, and this will become even more important as we build bigger telescopes like the Square Kilometer Array that will generate tremendous amounts of data.”Īstrophysical, cosmological data and simulationsįor the moment, VIRUP can already visualize data from over 8 databases bundled together. “Visualization of astrophysical data is much more accessible than showing graphs and figures, it helps to develop intuition of complex phenomena,” explains Revaz.

The latter constraint is imposed by the virtual reality environment, for a fully immersive and smooth experience.

#Space engineers download a map software

But what about creating a visual representation of the data in real-time, as if you were there, an observer at an arbitrary point in space and time? This is what astrophysicist Yves Revaz of LASTRO set out to do with the VIRUP, with the help of LASTRO software engineer Florian Cabot, and it meant rendering terabytes of data at 90 frames per second. In order to get visual representations of the vast amounts of data, like a movie, it’s standard practice to pre-render specific sequences. Even greater amounts of data are expected in the near future. There are already decades of observational data. The VIRUP challenge : visualizing terabytes of data at onceĪstronomers and astrophysicists are collecting data about billions of celestial objects in the night sky with the help of telescopes here on Earth and in space. “It’s the chance to travel through space, through time, and discover the universe.” “You can navigate through the most detailed map of the universe from the comfort of your own home,” explains Jean-Paul Kneib, director of LASTRO. The software is called VIRUP, for Virtual Reality Universe Project, and a first beta version is being released today. Now, for the very first time, you can enter the most comprehensive virtual universe based on the latest astrophysical and cosmological data, thanks to powerful, open-source software developed at EPFL’s Laboratory of Astrophysics (LASTRO). This is the beginning of a journey into outer-space, in a virtual environment developed by EPFL scientists. You can’t help but think that this is probably what an astronaut would see during a space-walk. You twist your head around only to see the moon, a tiny circle, far off in the distance.

The International Space Station is an arm’s length away. You’re floating in space, just above the Earth. Image: From left to right: Florian Cabot, Sarah Kenderdine, Yves Revaz, Jean-Paul Kneib.