Drawing of 3D Lines

[Shard]

This is a fairly complicated question so I hope I present it correctly.

 

I am looking to draw the orbit of planets for my solar system simulation and I'm not sure how to go about it.

 

Last time I tried this (with DarkGDK) I drew several spheres to show the line of the orbit, which then looked correct when viewed from a distance, but was very inefficient.

 

As far as the orbit code goes, I will figure that out using code (which in theory will give me a mathematical function) for what the orbit is. I am hoping I can use this in some way so that I can draw the orbit of the planets using 2D drawing to the screen.

 

 

Does anyone have any suggestions of how to do this?

[Canardia]

You don't need to use 2D drawing, but you can use 3D lines to connect real vertices with lines:

http://leadwerks.com/werkspace/index.php?/page/resources/_/programming/cpp/using-opengl-for-drawing-r19

[Laurens]

Glancing over the code in that tutorial it may be fairly complicated although it has a far wider use. A perhaps somewhat easier solution would be to simply render a plane with a transparent texture that has an opaque circle on it and then scaling the plane to represent the correct orbit.

[Shard]

Glancing over the code in that tutorial it may be fairly complicated although it has a far wider use. A perhaps somewhat easier solution would be to simply render a plane with a transparent texture that has an opaque circle on it and then scaling the plane to represent the correct orbit.

 

This doesn't quite work.

 

Because the orbits are based off of the gravitational pulls from the planets around it and the user will have the ability to move planets around, the orbit could be a perfect circle, an oval or not a shape at all and instead just a line.

[Volker]

Shouldn't 3D lines be part of the engine?

[franck22000]

that would be good yes

[Shard]

You don't need to use 2D drawing, but you can use 3D lines to connect real vertices with lines:

http://leadwerks.com/werkspace/index.php?/page/resources/_/programming/cpp/using-opengl-for-drawing-r19

 

 

Just glancing at it, this seems a little bit complicated. But alas, I do need it so I'll have to put some time into learning how to do it.

I suppose I'll just make a wrapper of sorts and tie it in with my sim initialization/drawing methods.