README rework

I did a MAJOR readme overhaul by restructuring it into like one continuous story while also making it sound less like a research paper (although the research paper vibe was my goal at the start)

Before, my readme was messy with no structure and just mixed into each other

My cleanup was mainly just reordering it and changing a few paragraphs to sound less research-y and more fun/story vibe

Most of the info was already previously there from the first version of the readme so this session was just about presentation

Energy loss

Normally, a pulsar loses energy when the magnetic field rotates. My simulation previously didn’t account for that. So that brought me to the idea of making the pulsar more realistic by implementing an energy loss system that causes the pulsar to slow down over time

New physics that was implemented

• Magnetic field radiation power: Calculated how much rotational energy the pulsar loses
• Spin down: Using that energy loss to calculate how quickly the velocity decreases
• Sneak peek into the actual physics behind this :

  P = -I × Ω × Ω̇

Where:

• P is the power radiated by the pulsar, measured in watts.
• I is the pulsar’s moment of inertia, which describes how difficult it is to change its rotation.
• Ω is its angular velocity, measured in radians per second.
• Ω̇ is the rate of change of angular velocity, measured in radians per second squared.

The negative sign is for the loss of rotational energy. Since the pulsar is slowing down, its spin down rate is negative, while the pulsar’s radiated power is positive

Lastly, connecting everything

I updated my pybind11 bindings to integrate the new C++ code into my pygame visualization. I also made sure that rotation speed doesn’t cause the magnetic axis to jump and that everything works as intended

https://github.com/Coverst-ux/Space-sim-Cpp-Port

I spent most of my time today polishing up my README for the stardance so I can actually reship the project

I really just broke down the details of the stardance/pulsar work with a little more explanation so the reader knows what’s going on such as rotation period, light cylinder, magnetic dipole field, etc…

Finally, I updated the demo website on my github to have the github icon actually point to the source code instead of just pointing to my general github profile

Probably not my most productive/impressive session but definitely was needed

Any feedback or suggestions is greatly appreciated!

I just finished the final touches on the pulsar visualization. I changed the beams to be more cone-like for visualization purposes, added control panel functionality and packaged it all into a .exe for you guys to try

I’ll try to create alternative for the goated non-Windows users

https://github.com/Coverst-ux/space-sim/releases/tag/v1.0.0 <- .exe file

https://github.com/Coverst-ux/space-sim <- github repo/readme

I thought the hardest part would be the pulsar physics, turns out it was the rendering that was a genuine pain

I reworked the field lines into 3D instead of the ugly previous 2D, added rotation, added a beam that you see in pulsars, and basic camera controls. I’m quite happy with how its all coming together.

Devlog 3

The pulsar is finally starting to look 3D

Today I connected it to the camera system from the rest of the simulator, so I can rotate and zoom around it properly now. I also added a 3D background starfield, which surprisingly helped a lot because you can actually between the front and the back of the simulation

The magnetic field lines were also moved from 2D plane into a 3D plane around the neutron star. I added some glow to them and worked on a feature where the lines that go behind it just disappear instead of awkwardly just being in the background

There were a couple annoying bugs with lines randomly disappearing and even entering the star itself, but those are fixed now

It still has a LONG way to go visually, but I think it’s starting to resemble the kind of pulsar simulation I had in mind

Devlog 2

I finally got the rendering to an (Okay?) place.

Most of my work was on the physics side of the pulsar. Which isn’t exactly the “most exciting” per se. So I decided to get the visualization and get it looking like an actual simulation instead of a bunch of nerdy physics.

The big blue ball in the middle is the neutron star ofc. And those lines are the magnetic field lines that surround the star.

Tracing them was quite the pain. I had to trace the magnetic field from all the different points around the star. Then, figure out how to like follow it in both directions and have a copy of each field line on each side as you can see.

It is DEFINITELY not staying like this. I wanna get it up to par with the rest of my work which is in the README (go check it out 😊). Although, not having models/assets is a big obstacle so I’m forced to draw everything with Pygame.

Currently, the physics is simplified so I can get a minimum viable product of the simulation.

So now I’m stuck between two choices:
A) Get the simulator to look significantly better
or
B) Unsimplify the physics and make it technically impressive

I’ll go start figuring out that one next

Researched and wrote notes for the simplified pulsar physics. Implemented the 3D magnetic field calculation. Tested the logic, scaling, and guards for invalid behavior. Compiled the pulsar module and confirmed that all tests passed.

My next course of action would probably be connecting the C++ physics engine to python for visualization.