OrbitLens Devlog #1: Rendering the Earth 3D

I just kick started this project, Orbit Lens, and my aim is to build a fully free, real-time 3D satellite tracker from scratch using Three.js and maybe some other libraries. Today was all about creating the core 3D arch. You can’t track a satellite without a planet to orbit, so Phase 1 was focused on rendering the Earth and setting up the Three.js environment.

What I accomplished in Phase 1:

• Set up my environment with Vite
• Built the Three.js scene, camera, and render loop.
• Rendered a 3D Earth utilizing maps from solar system scope.
• Enabled OrbitControls to enable camera panning

This is just the basic foundations of the project so there’ll be much more development in the future.