A Vulkan-powered, GPU-accelerated space engine that simulates the physics of our universe. Real N-body astrophysics running at interactive framerates.
Ikarus is not a game engine with physics bolted on. It is a real astrophysics simulator that runs at interactive framerates. Every body in the simulation follows N-body gravitational dynamics computed on the GPU via tiled shared-memory compute shaders.
Fly from Earth to the edge of the observable universe without a single precision error. Real SI units — meters, kilograms, meters per second — everywhere. No arbitrary scaling. No shortcuts. Just physics.
Four-stage GPU simulation pipeline. N-body gravitational dynamics, extended-body collision detection, neutron-star merging with mass-energy conversion, and gravitational-wave emission — all running in parallel on compute shaders.
Full GPU-accelerated N-body computation using tiled shared-memory compute shaders. Millions of gravitationally interacting bodies at 60+ FPS on RTX 40-series hardware.
Extended-body simulation with real radii. Accurate collision detection triggers automatic merging — neutron-star pairs collapse into black holes with momentum conservation and 1–5% mass-to-energy conversion.
Every merger emits a detectable gravitational-wave event. Real-time propagation with screen-space distortion — visible shockwaves rendered as quadrupole stretch/squeeze in the fragment shader.
Variable world-time acceleration from 1× to 1,000,000×+ with adaptive sub-stepping. Fixed-timestep Verlet integrator maintains physics stability at any time scale. Future RK4 upgrade planned.
The same technique used in professional astrophysics codes. Double-precision coordinates on the CPU, camera-relative 32-bit rendering on the GPU. Seamless travel from planetary surfaces to intergalactic distances with zero jitter.
Real-radius spheres rendered direct from the physics SSBO via instancing. Type-based visuals distinguish rocky planets, glowing neutron stars, and black holes with accretion-disk placeholders. Additive-blend particles with velocity trails.
Compute-shader-driven procedural generation. Spiral galaxies with embedded solar systems, random neutron-star and black-hole populations, and pre-scheduled merger events. One click generates an entire universe.
High-precision quaternion free-fly camera up to 0.999c. Full ImGui panel with world-time slider, spawn menu for planets/NS/BH, gravitational constant tweaking, demo selector, and real-time performance graphs.
Up to 2,000,000 gravitationally interacting bodies at sustained 60 FPS using tiled shared-memory compute. Scales linearly with GPU compute power.
10,000–50,000 bodies with complete collision detection, automatic merging, gravitational-wave emission, and screen-space distortion effects.
48-byte compact GpuParticle SSBO layout. SOA structure on CPU with double precision, minimal memory footprint on the GPU side.
0.5PN corrections already stubbed into the integrator. Future full 1PN/2PN implementation for relativistic orbits near compact objects — accurate precession and orbital decay without full GR overhead.
Every major system is a self-contained module: floating_origin.h, world_time.h, merge_queue.h, gw_events.h. Open architecture makes it trivial to plug in custom shaders, models, or external data sources.
GLSL 460 compute and fragment shaders support hot-reload during development. Iterate on gravitational-wave distortion effects, accretion-disk visuals, and particle rendering without restarting the engine.
GPU N-body base with double-precision stubs, compute shader pipeline, and injection points for all future subsystems. The scaffolding everything builds on.
Floating origin coordinate system, world-time acceleration, live neutron-star/black-hole merging with visible gravitational-wave time ripples. Nine fully working one-click demos.
GPU procedural galaxy seeding with spiral arms and embedded solar systems. LOD system for sphere-to-billboard transitions. Basic accretion disks. ImGui master demo menu.
Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics for realistic neutron-star interiors. Kilonova explosion rendering. Full gravitational-wave propagation grid with strain visualization.
Post-Newtonian / pseudo-GR for black holes. Gravitational lensing. NASA SPICE kernel import for real Solar System ephemeris. Spaceship physics, save/load, multiplayer spectator mode.
Full relativistic ray-tracing. Universe-scale web export via WebGPU. VR support. The endgame: a consumer-grade tool that lets anyone explore a physically accurate universe.
Not a game engine with physics bolted on. A real astrophysics simulator that runs in real time with actual N-body gravitational dynamics on the GPU.
The only consumer-grade engine with live neutron-star mergers and visible gravitational waves. Watch compact objects spiral, collide, and emit detectable GW events in real time.
Floating-origin + double precision = actual universe scale. No other hobby or research project does this cleanly at interactive framerates with a full N-body solver.
Every feature is instantly demoable with a single click. Nine pre-built scenarios from binary neutron-star inspirals to full galaxy evolution. No setup required.
Modular, header-based subsystems. Plug in your own shaders, models, or data. Import NASA SPICE kernels or Gaia star catalogs. Extend without fighting the engine.
Interested in Ikarus? Have ideas about N-body simulation or gravitational-wave rendering? We'd love to hear from you.
hello@proceduralabs.eu