Switched planets from async ellipsoid geometry to orthographic-disc BILLBOARDS
(reliable, unlit, no worker geometry), with billboard-image refresh once each
disc canvas is drawn. Fixed the near-plane depth collapse (near 0.1 + far 6e9
killed the starfield). All logic verified — real live positions, disc textures
drawn, bodies project to screen, mode/UI/travel-to work — but I could NOT get
the solarsystem datasource to visually render in the headless preview despite
exhaustive debugging. NOT deployed; needs a real-browser render check / a fresh
debugging pass. Live site is unaffected (never deployed this).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
New '◉ Solar System' mode: leaves the Earth OSINT globe and renders a
heliocentric orrery — Sun + 8 planets as spheres textured with real (CC BY 4.0,
self-hosted) imagery, at their TRUE current positions (Schlyter series, incl.
Uranus/Neptune), with orbits. A 'Travel to…' panel flies the camera to any body;
'Return to Earth' restores the full OSINT view (globe, all layers, clock, camera,
frustum, lighting — all saved/restored). Planets exaggerated + distances
compressed for a readable orrery; Saturn ring; camera headlight for even lighting;
far plane widened to 8e9 (default 5e8 would clip the whole system).
Textures harvested from Solar System Scope (CC BY 4.0), self-hosted in textures/
(WebGL taints cross-origin), credited in-app + README + textures/TEXTURES_CREDIT.md.
Components verified in-browser (ellipsoids render, positions correct, mode
enter/exit, UI, textures). Full-orrery screenshot pending a real GPU frame — the
headless preview can't complete async worker geometry (backgrounded tab clamps).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
