Solar Kingdom - Features

Full simulation of the planets and moons. That is well over 100 objects.
Their positions are modeled accurately and their appearance matches the NASA simulator at http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/ . The simulator is accurate enough to model the solar eclipse in 1999 and the transit of Venus in 2004. The graphics in Solar Kingdom are significantly better than the NASA simulator (and interactive) at http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/.
The user has full control of the camera's position allowing 'quake like' camera control, including free look.
Simulator has over 300,000 accurately positioned stars and can show all constellation figures.
Full control over the flow of time. Time can be run at almost any rate, even backwards!
User can add their own asteroids and moons. This can be acomplished by either entering the orbital data (easier than it sounds) or by using the built-in asteroid search tool. You can even make one asteroid orbit another, or add a moon or two.
Irregular object support. Solar Kingdom now displays some objects as non-spherical producing even higher quality images.
Full screen viewer mode
User controllable view screen size, very useful for precise wall-paper shots
Camera has full pan, tilt, roll, zoom and velocity properties.
Readings panel can show angles and distances to any body in the simulation.
Integrated planetarium that can be configured to any place on Earth and runs in parallel with the simulator.
Fly by mode, camera can be set to semi-randomly orbit a body
Interactive overhead map of the solar system.
Telescope view of Jupiter showing the position of the four Galilean moons. This also runs in parallel with simulator.
All objects are rendered in 3D using high resolution texturing. 3D hardware acceleration can be used if available.
Scalable hardware requirements. The simulator can produce good results on a Pentium 120 with 32MB RAM. Is outstanding on a modern PC even without hardware acceleration.
Camera position and simulator parameters can be saved for later replay.
Simulator viewer image can be captured.
Fully integrated encyclopedia of the solar system. All significant solar system objects are covered, along with comets, asteroids and of course the Sun. This currently runs to several hundres topics, 500 images and 50 movies. The information in the encyclopedia is current as of 2004 and includes information and discoveries from the Mars Rovers and Cassini-Huygens missions.
Full list of related internet sites - over 150 links
DirectX 6.1, 7, 8, 8.1, 9 and 9.1 compatible
Adaptive camera processing means that depth of field resolution is not lost at large distances. Simulator can focus on objects from 5 km to 500,000,000+ km distance.
Full Help included
Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Millennium (Win Me), Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows 2003 compatible
3D hardware accelerator NOT required.
Joystick optional
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