If you're creating a sci-fi game, you might find this useful. For a game project I made a self-organizing 2D map of the 5000 closest stars. It took some effort, so I thought I'd make it available for everyone out there:
http://starmap2d.appspot.comI go to great lengths to explain what this is, but the best explanation comes from a public post by Winchell Chung below. He's talking about pen&paper RPGs/wargames, but the same idea applies to computer games as well (99% of games set in space present their galaxy maps in 2D or 2.5D):
Stars are of course in three dimensions, but unfortunately a printed paper map makes a lousy hologram. If you just make a 2D map out of a 3D map by removing one of the dimensions, the map is almost worthless. Stars that are actually far apart can appear right next to each other.
Filip is using a mathematical technique called self-organizing Kohonen maps to address the problem. The resulting map may not have the stars in exactly the proper place,
but at least the stars are at the proper distances from each other in the 2D plane.
So if you want strict accuracy you'll have to use a dynamic 3D computer display. But if you are making a science fiction game and just want a little accuracy on your printed map, this solution is good enough.
(From:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/+WinchellChung/posts/JnH4uUGVwzu)
There's a CSV file with all the data, but even before you use that, you can print out hex maps that look like this:
The data are all public domain and the maps are Creative Commons. Feel free to use and abuse (but I'd be thrilled if you let me know when you do).
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