P-165: Solar System Viewer Update 3

I have almost finished this project for now.

I have scaled the data from the Horizons Telnet server, rendered the planets at the locations given by this data, and verified, using an online star map (HERE) that the data is correct for the dates that I specifed. I am very happy with the accuracy of the data!

I have also scaled the planets to realistic sizes, and textured them, as well as porting the code to a version of the engine compiled on my new machine, since the old version was running very slowly.

I have run into some minor issues however. Firstly, the scale of the planets and their distances is causing some issues. Since I am using realistic number here, everything all distances and planet diameters are accurately scaled in relation to each other. This means that it is very difficult to get all of the planets into view at once, since planets such as Jupiter, for example, dwarf Earth and the smaller planets. Scaling the system to view Jupiter easily means that you can barely see Earth, Mercury, Venus, and Mars, while scaling the system to show the inner planets easily means that Jupiter is just a looming blob in the background.

The same problem exists with distance. When viewing the inner planets, Pluto is not visible. If I render the sun at a realistic scale, the problems get even worse, since the sun dwarfs everything.

I think I will have to be somewhat creative with how I handle this.

I will probably not render the sun at full size, for one thing. I may just add a label where the sun should be, this should simplify the scale problem significantly. I will also likely add options so that the user can zoom to specific planets, or alter the scale at will.