StarGen II

StarGen creates datasheets for realistic solar systems. It is a C++ Solar-System Generator, based on a random seed, or on real astronomical data from the Celestia database.

Starting with a small amount of information about a star (mass, luminosity and age), Stargen extrapolates the solar system from its initial dust sphere to its accretion into planets, asteroids and atoms. Then it calculates the composition of the planets ground, oceans, atmosphere and climate, using physical laws and the algorithms of the orginal stargen program.

It is used for developing space simulation games. You can use the executable binary, or include the C++ files into your own programs.

StarGen II is a 2006 fork of Jim Burrows's Stargen (see below).

Original StarGen

The original StarGen code is developed by Jim Burrows in Visual C and can be found at eldacur.com. Stargen is derived from the work of a great number of people over the past three dozen years. It can be use for Celestia, space games, etc. A GitHub repository is available here.

StarGen 2

Rewritten in C++, StarGen-II offers a set of classes that can be used to define the characteristics of solar systems, during the runtime of your application, or in advance using the command line program.

The program generate an XML file (or a plain TXT), describing a solar system.

All technical information about how the library works can be found in the doxygen documentation.

Output Format

StarGen-II generates XML files that can be easily parsed by your software, and TXT files that are more human-friendly and contain comments (especially units).

Interface with Celestia Catalog

You can associate StarGen-II with the Celestia catalog (files are included with Stargen-II). In that case, you can generate solar system datasheets based on real astronomical data.

Files

• SG_xxx files : classes of the StarGen-II library.
• CE_xxx files : classes for reading the Celestia data files.
• .dat files : Celestia data files .
• stargen.exe : a command-line executable, that shows how to use the library.

Usage of stargen.exe

stargen.exe is a sample command-line program that shows the abilities of the Stargen-II library.

You can get this demo program, by clicking the "Releases" button and download the EXE and the 2 DAT files.

• stargen generates a random datasheet
• stargen 0 generates a datasheet for the Sol system ( stargen calculation model)
• stargen 32349 generates a datasheet for the star with the Catalog Number 32349 (ie: Sirius)

Compiling the files

To compile the sources, I use the Windows QT Creator compiler. It is free and very easy to use. (I do not use a Linux system) The QT project file (stargen.pro) and the makefiles are includes in the repository.