Heavy WebGL Prototype

NASAPD

A NASA patent-data discovery prototype staged inside a starship bridge, built with local data, generated worlds, and an intentionally cinematic WebGL renderer.

By Eric Rhea GameLab prototype Status: Static WebGL build

This project is not web optimized. It uses advanced post-processing techniques that have not been optimized and may require significant consumer-grade GPU hardware to even run.

NASAPD starship bridge prototype with glowing floor panels, LCARS-style displays, and a NASA lexicon station
NASAPD frames NASA patent exploration as a bridge-and-research-station walkthrough rather than a conventional data table.

High-Level Overview

NASAPD is a GameLab experiment that wraps NASA patent records in a first-person starship bridge. The prototype uses a local copy of the NASA Patents dataset, companion enrichment files, generated textures, music, ship geometry, and a WebGL scene to make the source material feel like an explorable research deck.

The build is closer to a graphics stress test than a polished web product. The useful question is whether a dense public dataset becomes easier to approach when it is staged as an environment with stations, maps, research logs, and visible mission context.

Important Notes

Not web optimized The current build ships as a static prototype with large local assets and no production optimization pass. Expect long loads and heavier memory use than a normal content page.
GPU-heavy post processing The viewer uses advanced post-processing techniques that have not been optimized and may require significant consumer-grade GPU hardware to even run.

What the Prototype Lets You Do

  • Launch a static starship viewer that redirects into the project-local viewer/index.html runtime.
  • Move through a generated bridge with patent-facing interface panels, research stations, and a NASA lexicon view.
  • Inspect NASA patent themes, center context, and source-data caveats from local CSV and JSON companion files.
  • Test a cinematic Three.js pipeline with bloom, generated textures, long-range audio, and ship/surface scene systems.

Source Backbone

The data layer starts with the public NASA Patents CSV, then adds local JSON enrichment for center summaries, topic facets, licensing context, and experience copy. The CSV remains the source of truth.

Local file nasa_patents.csv, with 1,393 data rows and 7 columns preserved from the source distribution.
Publisher data.nasa.gov through catalog.data.gov, with parent organization National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Runtime shape Static HTML, local Three.js modules, GLB models, generated texture atlases, MP3 music, and local NASA patent JSON files.

Build Detail

The viewer is plain HTML, JavaScript modules, and vendored Three.js. It uses a first-person canvas, generated ship and surface systems, GLTF assets, local data files, EffectComposer, UnrealBloomPass, and OutputPass. Those choices are the point of the experiment, but they also explain the hardware warning above.

Related builds

MMS4 Ephemeris Lens is another NASA data exhibit. Transporter TSI Riot turns public transportation data into an interactive scene. Timestorm Baseball is another browser-heavy 3D prototype.