Real Time Relativity 1.6.0

Real Time Relativity 1.6.0 is launched to be a convenient as well as professional computer program running on Windows or Mac OSX systems that allows the user to interactively experience a virtual relativistic world. See screenshot at right.

It was developed at the ANU by Lachlan McCalman, Antony Searle, Craig Savage and Michael Williamson. It follows on from the work on the Backlight relativistic ray tracer, and the Through Einsteins Eyes web site.

Major Features:

1. Real Time Relativity is the centrepiece of the project Teaching Physics Using Virtual Reality.
2. It uses the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) to do the calculations necessary to fly around in a world obeying relativistic optics. They have written a short paper about it.
3. Instructions available

Enhancements:

• Recreated developers guide headings in OpenOffice file. Due to bug in older OpenOffice (v2.x), previous attempts to add new headings restarted numbering.
• Made these settings persistent across sessions
• • Show Location
  • Show Times
  • Control Scheme
  • Invert Pitch
• Updated all docs.
• Added configurable "world detail level" options in Display menu. Also a persistent setting. 
• • This affects cubemap resolution and allows user to tradeoff performance for visual quality, without having to modify any config files. 
  • Options described in User Guide. But in brief, they relate to auto-increase (equivalent to old default behaviour), and fixed cubemap sizes of 512, 1024, 2048. 
  • Defaults to Standard (fixed 1024 cubemap). This improves the chances of RTR still running reasonably (or at all) if users switch to fullscreen with the largest resolution available.
• Updated to Ogre 1.6.1.
• Reworked Doppler transformations calculations.
• • Ensure first row is black, so that they don't get light where there was none. This removes "starbow-like" effect on a mostly black sky.
  • Texture size and doppler factor scaling is configurable. Tuned for better resolution of mapped colours. Much less colour change now when doppler activated while stationary.
• Added Display Menu option to "Disable Doppler effect on skyboxes". 
• • As explained in User Guide, this better represents the blackbody spectrum of stars by approximating a flat spectrum.
  • Whether this option has an effect or not is configurable per world.
  • Currently allowed for all stellar skyboxes, but not for the city scenario.

Requirements:

• OSX 10.4.x or higher (Intel or PowerPC)
• Desktop Color Depth: 24-bit or greater
• Video Card: A video card supporting Shader Model 2