This is a 3D tiling engine written in processing. Each 3D tile corresponds to a volume in space. The engine streams "tiles" as XML files with positions and other properties of galaxies inside a 3D tile. It then gets the images for all the galaxies in the tile from the "Sloan Digital Sky Survey" (SDSS) severs at the right size and resolution. 

Each galaxy is a quite heavy object, each has its own GUI interface (a small button in the top at the moment) and it can communicate to other galaxies via TCP. Like having a cosmic telephone :). I am still working on that part. The idea is to one day be able to connect with other colleagues using DeepSky and share views and information for collaborative work. 

In the background you can see X-ray emission images. You can choose any background that has been observed by any telescope stored in the National Virtual Observatory (NVO) servers.

All images are streamed once and the cached to disk.

Deepsky is fully functional and works in stereo 3D. You can click on any galaxy and it opens a browser with detailed information of the galaxy.

 I use it on a regular basis for research to study the environment around galaxies. I am integrating a kinect interface for natural interaction.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FDrfklrzmA&feature=plcp

cheers, 

   Miguel