SpaceSim - Astrophysical Simulation Software

SpaceSim is a particle-based simulation and rendering software primarily focused on astrophysical applications
Important
This is a non-realtime simulator Although low-resolution simulations are fast enough to be real-time simulations with millions of particles can take several hours to finish
This is not a game It does not contain any game mechanics progression sandbox elements etc Please do not expect any gaming experience
The goal of the project is to de-mystify scientific simulations and make them accessible to the general public SpaceSim uses the same approach albeit simplified and at lower resolution as the research simulations typically run on supercomputers but it can run on your desktop PC or laptop comes with an intuitive user interface and requires no extensive knowledge of mathematics physics or programming
You can recreate some of the well-known simulations from the scientific literature such as the Moon-forming impact the formation of the ring system of Saturn or the DART kinetic impactor Or you can simply explore various initial conditions both grounded and realistic but also hypothetical what-if scenarios such as the collision of two planets made of matter and anti-matter.Fluid dynamics and gravitation
Each deformable object in the simulation is discretized into particles that interact with each other through collisions by solving the Navier-Stokes equations and gravitational attraction Objects can also be rigid non-deformable they retain their shape which simplifies collisions between objects and optimizes simulation speed
The particle-based solver is useful for simulating a number of astrophysical events such as the formation of planets from protoplanetary disks or the mutual interaction of galaxies
Object customization
The application has a number of object types planets stars asteroids disks clouds galaxies and more Each object has adjustable parameters that allow you to change its geometry materials appearance and simulation behavior The surface textures of planets and asteroids can be further tailored using procedural generation or by uploading custom images
Or if you need even more control create your own objects using the Lua scripting language
Black holes and white holes
The renderer includes the effect of gravitational lensing bending the light rays that pass close to a black hole and creating realistic renderings of warped accretion disks duplicated images of objects behind black holes including other black holes or Einstein rings of galaxies
Particle colors and gravity visualization
SpaceSim provides additional insights into the simulation in a number of ways It can color particles based on values of a specific quantity velocity pressure material show the Roche limit indicating where satellites can have stable orbits or draw the potential field to see the gravity wells around celestial bodies
Key features
CPU and GPU simulation solver
Optimized gravity simulation using the Barnes-Hut algorithm
Simulation history store the entire simulation and replay it later
Two render engines Real-time or Raymarcher
Customizable camera paths with object tracking
Lua scripting for custom objects and simulation systems
Built-in video recording H.264 codec and various export options Alembic OpenVDB