# \[FREE\] The Milky Way as we know it - 3D view in browser.

**URL:** <https://discourse.threejs.org/t/free-the-milky-way-as-we-know-it-3d-view-in-browser/95025>\
**Category:** Showcase\
**Tags:** 3d, earth, browser, threejs\
**Created:** [October 5, 2026, 11:37am UTC](https://discourse.threejs.org/t/free-the-milky-way-as-we-know-it-3d-view-in-browser/95025 "2026-10-05T11:37:31Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Daniel\_Noam\_Tuby](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/discourse.threejs.org/daniel_noam_tuby/32/73175_2.png) [@Daniel\_Noam\_Tuby](https://discourse.threejs.org/u/Daniel_Noam_Tuby)\
**Post date:** [October 5, 2026, 11:37am UTC](https://discourse.threejs.org/t/free-the-milky-way-as-we-know-it-3d-view-in-browser/95025/1 "2026-10-05T11:37:31Z")

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A few weeks ago I showed my niece the latest meteor shower. Since then she hasn’t stopped asking: How far away are the stars? What even is a star? Can we get to another star? 🌌

So together with my brother, we built her (and everyone) a website: Exo-View. A 3D atlas of the Milky Way, as we know it.

What’s inside:  
• 32,639 real stars from the HYG catalogue, each where it was measured and in its own colour  
• Flights to the nearest stars, with the real distance in light-years  
• Nebulae and black holes at their real positions, with light bending computed in a shader (ray-marching)  
• The solar system from orbital data for this very moment, and eclipses on their real dates  
• Earth with World Bank data and an index builder

It all runs in the browser: three.js + WebGL, nothing to install, in English and Hebrew.  
I’d love feedback, especially on performance across devices 🙏  
👉 [https://exo-view.com](https://exo-view.com)

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**Author:** ![jonas\_javier](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/discourse.threejs.org/jonas_javier/32/73067_2.png) [@jonas\_javier](https://discourse.threejs.org/u/jonas_javier)\
**Post date:** [October 5, 2026, 2:27pm UTC](https://discourse.threejs.org/t/free-the-milky-way-as-we-know-it-3d-view-in-browser/95025/2 "2026-10-05T14:27:53Z")

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The mix of real HYG catalogue positions with light bending in a shader is a great combination, and 32k stars at their measured positions is a lot to keep smooth. Since you asked about performance across devices: for my own ray-marched black hole, tiering helped more than optimising the loop. 190 steps by default, 340 only with a mouse, a wide screen, eight cores and 8 GB, and a flat fallback for software GPUs. On phones I let the resolution climb from 1 to 1.5 pixels per point only while the frame rate holds, and step back down if it stutters. Do you march the whole screen, or only a quad around each black hole?