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Gravitation3D
©2001-2007 R3 Productions
written by Roice Nelson
special thanks to!
Sarah Nemec-Nelson
Charlie Nevill
B. G. Szabo
Cole Erderly
Amy McCormick
Thom Mayer
Rob Harris
Marti Nelson
Richard Pineo Gravitation3D is an
OpenGL based shareware program written for
Microsoft Windows PCs. It started as a hobby project in July 2002,
and quickly I could see from the excitement in friends and colleagues that it
would be something worthwhile to share with others. After some more
concentrated development work, it was first published on the web April 29th,
2003. The program provides a way for you to play the
creator. You construct unique solar systems from scratch by
adding gravitational bodies and configuring their starting properties. You
then start your simulation and watch your systems evolve. Gravitation3D
can provide hours of fun without even realizing you are learning! I
already consider it a success because of the subtle insights I've gained
from it. Gravitation3D is geared towards the
physics, space, and math hobbyist. It is also an excellent educational
tool, and would be perfect for generating interest in astrophysics, or for the high
school or college physics teacher who wanted to develop lesson plans around
it. Since
this is a graphics intensive program, the nicer your computer and video card,
the better chance you have for smooth operation. As a low end benchmark, I
am able to run the program ok on my Pentium III, 500 mHz with a TNT2 video
card. This computer was purchased in November, 1999. However, it is
much more beautiful and satisfying to run on my 1.2 gHz computer with a
GeForce2. Some might already consider this latter computer somewhat
outdated.
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