We have received reports that Windows Defender may detect the file lwjgl-3.3.4-natives-windows-x86.jar included with Gaia Sky as a threat.
We investigated the issue and found strong evidence that this is a false positive affecting the upstream LWJGL 3.3.4 library. The LWJGL project has an issue documenting antivirus detections of its 3.3.4 release, including a Trojan:Win32/Vigorf.A detection by Windows Security:
Similar reports were also made by users of Necesse, another application using LWJGL. In that case, antivirus software specifically detected the same lwjgl-3.3.4-natives-windows-x86.jar file. The developers subsequently removed the file because it is only needed for 32-bit Windows:
In a little over a month, on December 2, Gaia Data Release 4 (DR4) will be made public. This data release will bring a new generation of star catalogs to Gaia Sky. Along with the release of DR4, we have taken the opportunity to simplify the way the Gaia catalogs are selected and presented.
Gaia Milky Way panorama. ESA/Gaia/DPAC; Map: CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
We are proud to announce the release of Gaia Sky 3.8.0. This release brings a mainor overhaul of the procedural planet generation system, with domain warping, 3D biome LUTs, new presets, and a consolidated single-pass generation pipeline. It also introduces higher resolution icons for HiDPI, custom view mode panes, and many bug fixes.
Important
Gaia Sky 3.8.0 requires an update in the default data package. You will be notified on startup that an update is available. Please, update!
Procedural planet generation in 3.8.0 featuring lava, tropical, and desert presets.
We are proud to announce the release of Gaia Sky 3.7.4. This release brings a major overhaul of the atmospheric scattering model with ozone absorption, Bruneton’s density scale, a unified ground/sky integrator, and a physically-grounded parametrization. It also includes important bugfixes for the keyframe system, and build system updates.
The revised atmospheric scattering model in 3.7.4 at work.
About a couple of months after the last release, today we are proud to announce Gaia Sky 3.7.3. This release focuses on quality-of-life features and on important bug fixes.
Here is a summary of what’s new in this release:
Complete redesign of “Load dataset” dialog.
Improve file picker with proper history stack and more goodies.
New line shading method based on screen-space derivatives.
PBR extensions to wavefront format.
Improve index creation speed for particle and star sets.
Fix breaking bug in 3.7.2 where model-based sets (e.g. star clusters) were not positioned correctly.
Today is release day! We are proud to present Gaia Sky 3.7.2. This release contains many new features and bug fixes. We wrote a post covering most of them last week, so you may want to have a look at that. Nevertheless, below is a non exhaustive summary and further down a full list of all new features, bug fixes, and more.
New shading types for billboards.
Refactor of orbital element groups into particle groups.
Dataset updates (FPR asteroids, Saturn rings).
Anaglyph custom colors mode.
Logarithmic and reset UI sliders.
New languages: Simplified Chinese, Japanese, Italian.
I have been skimming the Gaia Sky git log, and I think we have enough new stuff to warrant a new release. This means that we now enter a testing period that will, hopefully soon, end up with the new version 3.7.2.
If you follow my BlueSky or Mastodon feeds, you have probably already seen most of these features in action. However, for those of you who don’t, this post aggregates and summarizes all the information on the upcoming version.
We are excited to announce the release of Gaia Sky 3.7.1. This release was planned for last Christmas, but we had to postpone it due to the server outage issue. Now it is here! While there are many under-the-hood fixes, the highlights of this version are:
The new procedural galaxy generation system,
the PBR shader overhaul,
some notable UI improvements,
a revision of the atmospheric scattering algorithm,
