The Planets

The 3D environments created using the VRML and X3D format are a valuable asset in the field of education. They can be used to demonstrate processes that may be difficult to explain. From a teaching point of view the visual aspects of the virtual world make learning much easier. A similar use is in a user's or mechanic's manual. Detailed repair processes can be illustrated without fear of misunderstanding.

This example is a very quick tour of our solar system, flying past each of the planets in very rapid succession. This file is rather large so it will take a bit of time to load.

Education

X3D is an excellent teaching tool since is it much easier to learn and remember facts that have been demonstrated in a visual manner.

In this file an attempt has been made to depict the relative sizes of the planets and their moons. The distances however have necessarily been shrunk much too small. In the picture on the left for example Saturn and one of its moons, Titan, are shown far too close together. In fact with the arrival of the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn and many new moons being discovered, some of the information in this file is already out of date.

For the latest information on the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn and Titan see the NASA web site for this mission.

Our solar system

The illustration at the left shows that there is not much difference in size between Pluto and its moon Charon. In most cases, to make the demonstration interesting the moons are shown much too close to their planets. In this case however the relative distance between the two is roughly correct. The distance between Pluto and Charon is less than 10 times the diameter of Pluto.

Certain planets rotate in a retrograde fashion. That is, they rotate in the direction opposite to the direction of their orbit about the sun. In this demo these planets will be on the left side. Venus, Uranus and Pluto rotate in a retrograde fashion. Many moons also have retrograde rotation. In the case of Jupiter, for example, it is the outer moons that have retrograde rotation. This seems to suggest that these moons are captured asteroids.

The tilt of the planets' axes is illustrated in this demo. In the case of Uranus for example the axis is tilted over about 98 degrees, which means that its axis is almost horizontal. This means that its axis is almost in the plane of its orbit about the sun.

Create Your Own Solar System

The files for this example can be downloaded here. DOWNLOAD

The files are contained in a zip archive called planets.zip. The textures that determine the surfaces are in PNG files, such as saturn.png. These files can be edited in any image painting program to produce planets of your own design.

If you are more adventurous you can also change the text that appears as the ship passes each planet. The main file is given in three formats: VRML 2.0 (planets.wrl), VRML 3.0 (planets.x3dv), X3D (planets.x3d). Open your favorite format in a text editor such as Notepad. The text is contained in Text nodes that appear near the end of the file. Change the planet's name and description that appears between the quotation marks. In this way you can design your own planetary system.