One step up from the AstroCube we have on Daden Prime in Second Life, we now have a whole sim running locally in OpenSim dedicated to stellar data. We are bringing data in through LibOMV so we are plotting anywhere on the sim at around 10 points per second directly from a CSV database.
For nearby stars the database we are using is the excellent one at http://www.projectrho.com/smap06.html. This has almost 45000 entries for stars out to around 5000parsecs (although 40000 are within 300parsecs), and is based on the ESA Hipparcos Catalog, the Yale Bright Star Catalog (5th Edition), and the Gliese Catalog of Nearby Stars (3rd Edition) with some extra data thrown in.
We can plot out to 128m from the centre point, ie whole sim, and the images in this post are based on plotting all stars within 20 parsecs (1 parsec is about 3 light years), around 1900 stars, at a scale of 5m per parsec!. Stars are coloured and sized based on spectral type (OBAFGKM) and Luminosity (I to VI).
The backdrop to the plot is a 256 x 256 cube with a texture of small white stars for effect purposes only. In the image above you can also just make out my avatar floating by the Sun.
We are not working on building the interactive features so you can interrogate each star and plot additional information (like exoplanets).
Zooming in towards Sol. The bright white stars are Sirius (lower right) and Procyon (upper right).
Sol. Proxima/Alpha Centauri group just under my arm!
With planetary discs switched on. Discs are colour coded by planet type, red/orange for Jupiter type, blue for Neptunes, green for terrestrial. About 100 planetary discs within range.
The upshot of all of this of course is not only to show that we can plot larger and larger quantaties of stellar data (the eventual aim is to get the 40000 stars within 300 ly plotted), but that we can use OpenSim to plot almost any sort of data in 3D.
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