[ Thanks to Chris
Halsall for this link. ]
“What we can do fairly inexpensively is simulate the physics of
a very strong gravity field acting upon a number of particles. By
simulating a thousand particles or so, a very pleasing visual
display can be created. Using a simple iterative solution, the
physics can be calculated quickly, while still resulting in true
‘Kepler’ orbits, within limits.”
“We’ll use OpenGL as the 3D API in order to leverage any 3D
hardware that might be available on the machine. Some basic
understanding of OpenGL is assumed in this article….The
accompanying program is similarly structured as well.”