Devlog - 8

I have never been this frustrated to deploy a website. When I went to deploy the website, it kept giving me errors and errors. The main fault was that Vite 8 used a rolldown to bundle dependencies. It couldn’t bundle my satellite.js as it used js and WASM. Then I tried many times to make the code forcefully use the JS version but it just didn’t work. Then I searched up and saw that Vite 8 causes this and if I downgrade to Vite 7 then it will work then I did that and finally the deployment was turned from errors to success message and now the site is finally live. I will be shipping this project soon. Thank you for the support once again!

Devlog - 7

I am happy to announce that OrbitTrace is complete. My own 3D satellite tracker is complete. For the last 2 hours I have focused on features which are Ground Track & Replay. Let’s start with Ground Track. The satellite on the model let’s us know that where the satellite is and the projected paths are just circles you may say. But Ground Track let’s you know the satellite is traveling relative to Earth. Like it travels in weird patterns around the Earth. The replay as you may guess is the where you can time travel. You can go behind in time for about 90 minutes to see where the satellite was. It increments per minute so it doesn’t take full 90 minutes to replay. Thank you for all the support.

Goal

As I have mentioned earlier this is my last project before and my last hope for A1 Mini 3D printer as it is getting hard to manage school and coding at the same time but I will try my best to work on more projects. I need around 200 more stardust and I think this project has the potential to achieve that. Thank everyone once again!

Devlog - 6

Ok guys, I think this was the hardest part of the project till now. I was trying to get the day/night version so it replicates the real earth. I this whole time figuring it out. Firstly I start up with math to actually figure out like astronomical values for the shader and to figure out where the Sun will be at what point of time but it didn’t work out but then I went to online libraries which let’s say also didn’t work as I could understand how to use it properly. I made so many changes through out this almost three hours but at the end I made a version where it sees users local time and adjusts the earth whether it will be day time or night time. Thank you and stay tuned!

Devlog - 5

Finally Finally. I have overcome the problem of syncing the latitude and longitude of the Earth and the satellites. So the main problem was, I used a tutorial to build the earth in 3D so what happened the Earth’s longitude at zero was -90 so because of that the calculations were being correct but the marker was being placed at a wrong latitude. Before I didn’t knew about that so I tried changing the math but that was correct and then when I figured out that is was at a wrong longitude, it was a simple fix as I just added +90. Then I encountered another problem which was after a search the zoom controls and the drag controls for the earth became sketchy. That was because I was using a normal zoom function before but for zooming in on a satellite after the search it switched to x, y, z coordinate system and after just for normal zoom it tried to switch back to normal but couldn’t and that is why it became sketchy but I fixed that as well. Then I started to add features in. I have added satellite’s porjected path and completed path in now. You can see that in the video below. This was just like debugging. Thank you and stay tuned!

Devlog - 4

Right now it is being a bit too much of a trial and error debugging for me. I did manage to get all the satellites being added on the earth textured globe. There are around 16,000 satellites. I have separate code which asks the API for the data and then that data gets parsed and then it converts it to TLE and which is then used in the main code to make those markers. Then I added search feature and while making that search feature I noticed that still the syncing of the latitude & longitude of the textured earth and the satellites is still a big problem. I can’t get it too sync with each other. I will be continuing to debug and lets see what happens. Thank you & stay tuned!

Devlog - 3

In 2 hours I have worked on quite a few different things. Starting it off with a problem mentioned in the last devlog which was having the latitude and longitude of satellites matching that with the earth’s lat and lon. I have fixed that problem and it was quite a silly one because It the API which had me blocked for a temporary basis because I have requested a lot in a few amount of time. So, it was just no responding to the request and that is why the satellites where not appearing and stayed in the middle. Second I added a sliding panel for the satellite information in which I encountered a problem where I was using Raycaster and it detected every click rather than a specific satellite click so then I again did like trial and error process and got it to work at the end. Also created a new data folder so that the data for satellites stays separated from the main code. Next up I will be loading more of the satellites into the project. Thank you and stay tuned.

Devlog - 2

Ok guys I have spent the time mostly getting the API working and gathering the TLE data which just means two line element data. I am currently getting data from CelesTrak and it is going quite good. I have also gotten the marker for the ISS on the globe. The part I am struggling with currently is the fact to sync the coordinates of the satellite with the earth and with the mouse movement. Currently I am trying many different things out like stopping the earth rotation and changing the camera location rather than the actual earth, just like trial and error. I have still not found a way to get this thing to work but I am continuing the trial and error process and will update about it in the next devlog. Thank you and stay tuned!

Plus sorry for late devlog as I can’t really focus on coding much as the school has started and all.

Devlog - 1

Thank you so for the support for SkyTrace. That project got great votes and helped me get closer to my goal for an A1 Mini 3D Printer. After seeing the success of SkyTrace, I have decided to make OrbitTrace. SkyTrace = Aviation enthusiast whereas OrbitTrace = Space enthusiast.

Progress

For the progress I worked on making a globe, make it rotate, follow the direction of the and I have added stars. This process for me was fairly quick because I have previously made a globe for 3d flight tracking but let just say it didn’t go well. But I am back to making globes. Currently, I have planned to make it a satellite tracker but as usual it is not going to be that simple. I am going to add more unique features to as I did to SkyTrace. It might take me longer to post devlogs because now I have to manage studies and coding which is getting a bit harder, but I will ship this project. Thank you & stay tuned!