This is a simulation of our Galaxy, the Milky Way, realised as part of the veRTIGE project.

veRTIGE (visually enhanced Real Time Interactive Galaxy for Education) has been a 5 years R&D project dedicated to the improvement of the visualization in planetariums of our Milky Way.
The project has been built as a cooperation between Paris-Meudon Observatory, INRIA, and RSA Cosmos, a French company specialised in planetariums design and installation.

The veRTIGE visualisation uses output of GALMER supercomputer simulation which produces SPH particles containing stars and gas. Those particles were used to extract dust position then dust data was amplified using fractals to add more details.
Open clusters of various ages were added to the model, and ionised areas in the youngest open clusters were simulated combining dust and open clusters positions.
Finally individual stars are generated procedurally using realistic distributions (in term of mass, luminosity, metallicity and age) and using the correct density depending on the location in the Milky Way (bulge, galactic plane, spiral arms, etc.).

Our Galaxy can be represented in 6 different photometric bandwidth including visible, Near IR, Far IR, and UV. The current model contains:
- 10 million gas & dust particles
- 3 million open clusters
- 117 000 HII region
- more than 150 billion individual stars

This video describes how the model was built and shows how a multiwavelength journey within our Galaxy can be represented in planetariums with *interactive rendering*.

This project has been possible thanks to the support of the French National Agency for Research and CNRS.
RSA Cosmos: Reynald Arnerin, Mikaël Lemercier, Benjamin Cabut
Observatoire de Paris: Frédéric Arenou, Françoise Combes, Yannick Boissel, Paola Di Matteo
INRIA: Fabrice Neyret, Pascal Guehl