dimasmith / planets

Toy simulation of planetary motion

Planets

A simple visualizer of planetary motion based on Newtonean mechanics.

Main intent of the project is to get some familiarity with Rust.

Running

You can describe a simulation using .ron files with the parameters. See assets directory for examples.

Place compiled planets binary next to the assets directory and start it.

Simulation controls

• , - slows simulation down;
• . - speeds simulation up;
• p - pauses/resumes simulation;
• mouse wheel - zooms in/out;
• esc - exit simulation;

Cli parameters

See cli help for details

planets --help

Control resolution

The simulation runs in the fullscreen mode by default. You can change it to windowed mode via the --windowed flag.

You can control the resolution using the --resolution=800x600 flag.

Note that when running in fullscreen mode on some systems the resolution might be igored. The OS might start simulation in a native screen resolution.

Internals

The project uses piston engine for rendering. World is built with hecs - nice implementation of ECS pattern.

Issues that will immediately kick you

• Paths to assets and file names inside are hardcoded.

Good words for

• JetBrains - for CLion and JetBrains Mono font
• Kerbal Space Program - for inspiration and a ton of fun :)

Plans

• Fix immediate usage issues;
• Use patched conics for orbit prediction (and, possibly, for simulation as well);
• Change camera focus;
• Detect collisions;