I've been spending the last couple weeks in my spare time making a web based 3d skydiving simulation software utilizing ThreeJS designed to realistically visualize and simulate how a skydive unfolds from exit to canopy deployment.
I had a couple of motivators starting this project - I recently returned to school to pursue a degree in Physics, but learning so much mathematical theory naturally inclined me to want to apply it to real world situations. After recently completing a skydiving training program, one thing became clear: there’s a serious lack of tools to help visualize where we are in the sky relative to other jumpers. Only after about 30 jumps do we gain the situational awareness to see where others are.
I've designed this to help jumpers understand spatial awareness, separation, and freefall dynamics and how wind affects them in a more intuitive way before they even step foot on the plane.
So far, the software includes
- A frame-by-frame time scrubber to review and analyze movement from any point
- Modular UI components that change the variables of the skydive
- A flexible camera system to observe from any position, or fixed to a jumper or plane
- Real weather data based on longitude and latitude (Pulled from Open-Mateo.com)
- Dynamic satellite imagery of chosen dropzone (Mapbox.com)
- Choose between 4 different planes with different flight characteristics (DC-9, Skyvan, Twin Otter, Cessna-172)
This is just the beginning, but I hope that this passion project turns into something that can effectively assist others in preventing injury and accident in the sky.
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