UniverseTrip is a 3D visualization program for displaying the position of cosmic objects across the entire observable universe.

Test it online now! Download the executable file (v1.0.0)
Takes a few seconds to load the simulation. Be patient :-) Take a UniverseTrip Tour and be impressed about the scale of the universe!

Features

• 3D visualization of cosmic objects in the observable universe.
• Zoomable from the Earth-Moon system to the entire observable universe.
• Scales selectable in powers of ten (Light years) via buttons.
• Intuitive navigation using the mouse and scroll wheel.
• Configuration of the display via a graphical user interface (GUI).
• Displayed objects are defined by an editable object file in .csv format.
• Object files with the most common objects as well as different astronomical catalogues are available.
• New object files can be freely created using the Object List Creator tool.
• Object data from the astronomical Simbad-database can be used.

Installation

There are three ways to run the UniverseTrip program:

• Run the test program online via the link above. In this case, the shown objects cannot be modified.
• Download the executable file (UniverseTrip.exe) from the latest release here.
• Download the UniverseTrip repository and run the UniverseTrip.py code. Python and nessesary libraries need to be installed separately.

Note: To run the simulation, you also need to download and select one of the objects_x.csv files from the release or the repository.
Note: To run the UniverseTrip.py code, you need to install python and the needed libraries:

• Download and install python from https://www.python.org/downloads/
• Install the libraries via pip:
• pip install pandas
• pip install plotly
• pip install nompy
• pip install pillow
• pip install astropy
• Run the UniverseTrip.py code by double click on the file.

Using the software

To start the program, run the UniverseTrip executable oder Python code (UniverseTrip.exe or .py).

The program starts with the Graphical User Interface (GUI) where you can select the object file to be displayed as well as some display options.
There are several objects files prepared in the repository (objects_*.csv). You can also prepare and use your own object file by combining the existing ones or creating new objects. The Simbad database can be used as source.

Note: The program needs a few seconds to load the data. Be patient.
Note: If the simulation is getting slow with big object files (>2000 objects), simply unselect the option to display the object names. Object names via mousehover can be kept active.

The standard browser will open and the simulation will start. The simulation is controlled by the mouse and the scroll wheel:

• Left mouse button: Rotate the view.
• Right mouse button: Pan the view.
• Scroll wheel: Zoom in and out.

When using a smartphone or tablet, you need to switch between pan, zoom, and rotate using the modebar in the top right corner.

With the buttons on the left side of the screen you can select the display scale.

Generate object files

There are several object files provided with this repository. They are named objects_*.csv.

The standard object file named objects_UniverseTrip.csv contains:

• All planets from the solar system, including Pluto.
• The most distance sattelites.
• The nearest 30 stars.
• The 100 brightest stars in the night sky.
• All 110 Messier objects.
• Most common galaxy groups, clusters, and superclusters, each containing many galaxies.

The other object files from the repository contain different astronomical catalogues, such as the NGC catalogue or the Bright-Star-Katalog which contains roughly every star visible to the naked eye.

The displayed objects can be modified by editing the object file in a text editor or Excel. Yust use the existing object files for getting the objects you want.

In case you need new objects, which are not available in the provided object files, you can generate them by either manualy copying the data from the Simbad web page or make an Simbad TAB query. For the TAB query, use the database file (database_*.xlsx) located in the /object_database/ folder and then generate the object file by using the UniverseTrip_ObjectListCreator.exe or .py.