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Products that do what I made a site where you can travel in space in your browser does
I made this site using R3F (https://github.com/pmndrs/react-three-fiber), a React renderer for 3JS (https://threejs.org/). The celestial bodies are Three.JS meshes. I used loaders (namely 'useLoader' from R3F and 'GLTFLoader' from 3JS) to import 3D models, such as International Space Station. More on loading models in R3F: https://docs.pmnd.rs/react-three-fiber/tutorials/loading-mod... I've future plans for this side project. It would be great to hear from the HN community before diving into them. Enjoy! P.S: Getting an empty…
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Features include: - Several preset periodic orbits: the classic Figure-8, plus newly discovered 3D solutions from Li and Liao's recent database of 10,000+ orbits (https://arxiv.org/html/2508.08568v1) - Full 3D camera controls (rotate/pan/zoom) with body-following mode - Force and velocity vector visualization - Timeline scrubbing to explore the full orbital period The 3D presets are particularly interesting. Try "O₂(1.2)" or "Piano O₆(0.6)" from the Load Presets menu to see configurations where bodies weave in and out of the orbital plane. Most browser…
Nov 2025 · trisolarchaos.com
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2020 · callumprentice.github.io
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Mar 2026 · structuredlabs.github.io
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Hello HN! Sharing a recent side project of mine, the Atlas of Space, that I built out to explore the Solar System. As a long-time space nerd, I realized recently that I didn't have a good intuition on the scale, speed, and relative orientation of the celestial bodies around us. So over the break I built out a kind of spatial Wikipedia to click around and learn about planets, moons, asteroids, and other bodies orbiting the Sun. The physics is all simulated in the browser using simple Newtonian mechanics. There's a lot left to do from here, including modeling objects in non-Keplerian orbits…
2025 · atlasof.space
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This is a little hobby project that I hope you enjoy. You can see where the International Space Station is now, with live HD video from NASA, on a realistic 3D globe. The positions of the sun and moon are also accurate, though distances aren't to scale. The clouds are also near-realtime; I span that out into a separate project at https://clouds.matteason.co.uk, where the cloud images I create from EUMETSAT data are freely available. I've got more features almost ready to go, like the ability to turn off all UI, toggleable clouds and turning off the day/night cycle I'd love for…
2024 · iss.matteason.co.uk
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I've been working on an MMORPG that is now in alpha as a solo developer. Here are the major open source technologies that I use: Blender - 3D modeling software for creating the overall environment and every game object. I've gotten a lot of CC and Public Domain assets from https://poly.pizza GLTF - I export assets from blender to the GLTF asset format JSON - I write a JSON config for every game object that describes things like its name, its interactions, its collisions, etc. Node.js exporter - I iterate over the environment and every asset to create a scene hierarchy. I use…
2024 · alpha.reconquer.online
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Many JS libraries exist to build graphs on the web (Vega, chartJS, Plotly...). They allow to make charts quickly. But you lose flexibility: you're limited by the options they offer. I just created a gallery with hundreds of graphs made with d3.js and React. - Examples are split by graph types - They all come with explanation and code sandboxes - Gradual complexity to ease the learning curve It took me ages to create this project! Feedback welcome!
2023 · react-graph-gallery.com
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Hello, I am the creator and maintainer of Stellarium Mobile. I have been working in my free time for about a year on this new project Galaxium, that is more about traveling in the universe rather than looking at the sky from Earth. It is still experimental, and at the moment I am not sure what it will become. Feedback is welcome.
13d ago · galaxium.app
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I made a GLSL shader that bends 3D space using a 4D hypersphere projection. The idea: 1. Project a model onto a 4D sphere 2. Rotate the sphere 3. Project the model back to 3D Code and details: https://github.com/bntre/CurvedSpaceShader Curious what you think.
2025 · github.com
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Hey HN, We’re Philip, Amby, and Declan, and we made “multiplayer virtual computers” that you can embed anywhere, including 3D spaces. We decided to build this because we noticed that embedding third-party apps and websites can be a nightmare due to incompatible platforms, security issues, and poor UX. Adding multiplayer functionality to these embeds makes this problem exponentially more difficult. On the backend, we’re spinning up a VM and running a resource-optimized fork of Chromium which we then stream to participants via WebRTC. Since we’re hosting the servers running the applications,…
2022 · threejs-example.hyperbeam.com
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I was looking for a tiny library to easily transform both 2D & 3D objects with simple mouse / touch controls and a fixed camera, in the browser. Like a simple 3D editor but without requiring the user to be a Blender expert. Couldn't find anything lightweight, so I’m building one. Think Fabric.js but for 3D. Built entirely with Three.js / R3F. Borrowed some inspiration from VR/AR interaction systems for controls. Feel free to play with it and let me know what you think!
2025 · punk.cam
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Google released an API in May to get fetch 3D Tiles of anywhere on Earth. Using this in standard 3D engines like Blender is tricky because (1) the tiles are in a geographic coordinate system (2) you get a lot of little tiles at varying quality levels I wanted to simplify this so all you need to do is get an API key, select a map region and a zoom level, and get one combined glTF file that you can throw into any engine. Especially if you're just prototyping and want to see how this data looks in your engine before investing in figuring out all the nuances of the API & coordinate system. (Note…
2023 · github.com
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Today my collaborator and I are releasing issinrealtime.org, a multimedia project that plays back every day onboard the ISS. Feedback welcomed. Here's an article that was just released about it: https://www.collectspace.com/news/news-102725a-iss-in-real-t... I also wrote a "making of" post about it here: https://benfeist.com/posts/iss-in-real-time/
Oct 2025 · issinrealtime.org
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I built this because measuring my age in years felt boring—I wanted to see the kilometers. The first version only used Earth's orbital speed (~30km/s), but the number moved too slowly. To get the "existential dread" feeling, I switched to using the Milky Way's velocity relative to the CMB (~600km/s). The math takes some liberties (using scalar sum instead of vector) to make the speed feel "fast," but it gets the point across. Under the hood, it's a single HTML file with zero dependencies. No React, no build step. The main challenge was the canvas starfield—I had to pre-allocate the…
Jan 2026 · cosmic-odometer.vercel.app
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Hi! I made a React compatibility library for a Virtual DOM library (https://github.com/aidenybai/million). The idea is to have much faster rendering (a compiler optimizes virtual DOM beforehand) while ensuring the same developer experience React provides. This is very, VERY early stage, so be prepared for weird bugs / plugin incompatibility / etc. If you have any suggestions, I'd be more than happy if you replied in a comment with it! You can spin up the demo here >> https://stackblitz.com/github/aidenybai/million-react-compat
2022
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2019 · urk-3d-multi-space-game.herokuapp.com
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I've been going through Cem Yuksel's "Introduction to Computer Graphics" course and thought that writing a volume renderer would be a good way to test my knowledge. It is a common technique used to render 3D medical data. Works by ray marching a specific step size, reading a 3D texture (e.g. MRI data), and calculating opacity values. Code should be easy to get started with for anyone familiar with the JS ecosystem. Questions for the HN community: I spent 20-25% of the entire time just setting up the project and fighting issues with the JavaScript ecosystem. This experience has made me…
2024 · github.com
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2020 · twitter.com
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Hi HN! This is my first game — something I’ve always wanted to do. It’s a small browser game built with Phaser 3, React, and the phaser template (https://github.com/phaserjs/template-react-ts/). I made it in 2 days (like 8 hours in total real time) using gemini-cli. About 90% of the code was generated with AI, but I learned a lot by making fine tweaks. It only works on PC since it’s a typical WASD + R (reload) shooter. I’d love feedback on: - Gameplay (is it fun, too hard?) - Ideas for new features Thanks in advance! ps: I used cubes as a prototype, but now I kind of…
2025 · cubic-zombies.pages.dev
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Heya, I’m working on a portfolio website simulating a 90’s UNIX style computer using React and ThreeJS. The style is mostly inspired by SerenityOS, macOS and compromised I had to make to get it to work well within a browser. :ˆ) I appreciate any feedback or suggestions.
2024 · joeyderuiter.me
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This is a service I've built to provide equirectangular cloud maps of the whole Earth, updated every 3 hours, for free. It's based on infrared and visible light data from EUMETSAT, processed to enhance the clouds and try to reduce the impact of surface temperatures on the final image. I built it because it's surprisingly hard to find these kinds of images in a format that's useful to developers and hobbyists. I was building a 3D ISS tracker and wanted to include live clouds but couldn't find anything good, so I got sidetracked, and here we are.
2023 · github.com
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