The following are projects undertaken by students in response to the following posting placed in the Maryland Student Researchers:
You will research the latest 3D web technologies and their applicability to solar-system visualizations. Background: ThreeJs is the most popular means to embed 3D graphics into modern web sites, but I'm interested in exploring other recent technologies, notably WebAssembly and game engines. Your task is create a simple Solar System prototype into WebAssembly (preferably using C/C++) or a game engine (preferably Godot), and, optionally, write up a brief report that describes the pros and cons of the technology used. This is primarily a software research project; you'll work with some basic astrophysics along the way. This is a great project for those interested in careers in game-programming and/or front-end web dev, and will be a nice addition to one’s GitHub portfolio. The project is 100% remote.
I have met with lots of students making clear that there is no limit to how many can explore these technologies, but also not putting pressure to follow through since I know how busy semester can get.
Ashley Redman from College Park Scholars SDU and is doing this as her capstone project for credit. She began in 2022 and has carried over into 2023. She chose to explore the Unity Game Engine. She has made good progress so far, getting to grips with the basics of Unity and outputting a simple model to iterate on.
Her code can be found here.
A recent stable build can be viewed here.
Lani Akinwale is a freshman who has chose to explore the Godot Game Engine. He does not at present intend to do the project for credit. He has made good progress so far, getting to grips with the basics of Godot and outputting a simple model to iterate on.
A clip of his progress so far can be seen here.
Guang-Lin Wei is a freshman who has chose to explore the Unity Game Engine. He does not at present intend to do the project for credit. He has made excellent progress so far; his latest version can be viewed here.
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