Constellation Atlas

The Constellation Atlas is a virtual simulation of the universe on the web using Three.js. We implemented two versions of the Constellation Atlas respectively to two approaches, one uses Points class with basic 2D texture for each star while the other employs a more advanced custom shaders for SphereGeometry objects.
Git | Research Paper


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Version 1 - Light-weight Approach

This implementation uses THREE.Points and basic texture. The resulting system is light-weight but lacks visual appeal.


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Version 2 - Realistic Approach

Each star is an instance of THREE.SphereGeometry and more advanced texture mapping is used. The resulting system is heavy on the performance side but each star has better look and feel.


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The Combined Approach

Combining the above approaches, we balance out the trade-off between performance and visual appeal.

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Visit Research Paper: https://goo.gl/GVbuob