Visualizing the Space Debris Environment
- Paper number
IAC-11,A6,2,14,x11112
- Author
Mr. Marek Möckel, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Germany
- Coauthor
Mr. Sven Kevin Flegel, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Germany
- Coauthor
Mr. Johannes Gelhaus, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Germany
- Coauthor
Mr. Vitali Braun, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Germany
- Coauthor
Dr. Carsten Wiedemann, Technical University of Braunschweig, Germany
- Coauthor
Dr. Heiner Klinkrad, European Space Agency (ESA), Germany
- Coauthor
Dr. Holger Krag, European Space Agency (ESA), Germany
- Coauthor
Prof. Peter Voersmann, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Germany
- Year
2011
- Abstract
Data visualization plays an important role in many scientific applications. In this respect, the sheer amount of objects that the space debris population consists of poses a great challenge. By combining the simulation algorithms used to model the space debris environment with the latest advances in computer graphics processing it is possible to generate real-time visualizations of hundreds of thousands of space debris objects. The applications of such graphical representations are manifold. For instance, they serve as important visual aids in the verification of simulation results. In the field of space debris research there is another important aspect: As the topic's political significance is rapidly increasing it becomes vital to present the subject to a broader audience without a deeper understanding of the underlying physics.\\ At the Institute of Aerospace Systems of the Technische Universit\"at Braunschweig, a software tool for the visualization of the space debris environment is currently being developed. It is designed to provide space debris researchers with a method to create animated graphical representations of their work. In combination with the latest advances in GPU computing which allow massively parallel general purpose calculations to be executed on graphics hardware, simulation algorithms can be run on the graphics card and directly visualized. A plugin interface enables the user to write different, interchangable propagation, simulation and filtering algorithms that run directly on the graphics card and manipulate the data in a way that exactly fits the user's needs.\\ In this publication, the prototypical visualization application is introduced and various use cases are discussed. The underlying architecture as well as the plugin interface is outlined.
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
(absent)