The purpose of this project was to create a really complete and detailed model of the Solar System. This model includes the Sun, the 8 planets, many of their moons and at least a simple representation of an asteroid. The planets are rotating around the Sun, the moons are rotating around their respective planets and the asteroid is rotating around the Sun. The planets and moons are rotating in the correct direction and at the correct speed and all of these movements are made using some mathematical formulas, like Catmull-Rom splines, to make the movements more realistic.
The project, as you can see by the files in the repository, is divided in 4 phases. Each phase is a different version of the project, with more features and more complexity than the previous one. What each phase asked to be done is described in the Project Phases file.
This project requires a few dependencies to be installed in order to run correctly. First of all, this project was made using OpenGL and C++, so you need to have a C++ compiler and the OpenGL libraries installed in your computer. Then you also need to have libraries like GLEW, GLM and many others installed in your computer. To install these libraries you can use the following commands:
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install build-essential cmake libglew-dev libglm-dev libdevil-dev libtinyxml2-dev freeglut3-dev$ sudo dnf install gcc gcc-c++ cmake glew-devel glm-devel devil-devel tinyxml2-devel freeglut-devel$ sudo pacman -S base-devel cmake glew glm devil tinyxml2 freeglut$ brew install cmake glew glm devil tinyxml2 freeglut$ vcpkg install glm glew devil tinyxml2 freeglutTo compile the project you need to run the following commands:
$ mkdir build
$ cd build
$ cmake ..
$ makeTo understand how to run the project, some context is needed.
There are 2 main executables in the project: generator and engine. The generator is used to generate the .3d files that are used by the engine to render the scene. The engine is used to render the scene using the .3d files generated by the generator. The generator receives some commands and arguments to generate the .3d files and the engine receives the path to a .xml file that is used to configure the scene.
In the repository there is a folder in each phase called tests. In this folder there are some .xml files that are used to configure the project. These files are used to configure the initial position of the camera, the initial position of the geometric figures, the colors of the figures, the textures of the figures, the lights of the scene, etc. To run the differents tests for each phase you need to go to each file in the tests and see the comments in the file to understand which commands you need to run to see the results of the tests. For example, if you go to the tests folder of the first phase and open the teste1 file you will see the following comment: generator cone 1 2 4 3 cone_1_2_4_3.3d. This means that you need to run the given command to create the .3d file that will be used by the engine to render the scene. So, to run the first test you need to run the following commands (remember that you need to be in the phase folder and build the project before running the commands):
$ ./bin/generator cone 1 2 4 3 cone_1_2_4_3.3d
$ ./bin/engine /tests/test_files_phase_1/test_1_1.xmlIn the case of the demos, all the files needed to run the demos are already in the repository. So, to run the demos you just need to run the following commands:
$ ./bin/engine /demos/solarSystem.xmlDo not forget that some of the phases may not have the demos implemented, since the demos were implemented in the last phases of the project.
For each phase of the project there is a report that explains what was done in that phase and what was the main goal of that phase. These reports are inside the reports folder.
- João Coelho - A100596
- José Rodrigues - A100692
- Duarte Araújo - A100750