Project
Solar System Perception
A layered web experience exploring how our visual understanding of planets evolved across time, imagery and sources.
Brief / Challenges
Context, constraints and the design question.
Solar System Perception investigates how planetary images are never completely neutral. Across history, planets have been represented as gods, symbols, abstract diagrams, telescope observations and scientific objects.
The challenge was to translate a heterogeneous archive of images and metadata into an interface that supports exploration, comparison and historical interpretation, without reducing the topic to a linear timeline.
How can an interface show that our idea of the Solar System is not fixed, but shaped by images, tools and cultural perspectives?
The Process
A concise view of how the project took shape.
A visual archive turned into an interactive system
The project started from a research question: how has the perception of the Solar System changed across history? To answer it, we collected and structured visual material from different sources, then transformed the dataset into an interactive web visualization where each planet becomes an archive of perspectives.
Process 01 — Dataset
Collecting, scraping and structuring planetary images.
The first phase focused on building the dataset. We collected images from public online sources such as NASA archives, Wikimedia Commons, museum collections and historical astronomy references. The material included mythological depictions, scientific diagrams, telescope drawings, educational images and space mission photography.
Each entry was then organized in a structured spreadsheet with metadata such as planet, date or period, author or institution, technique, perception type and source link. This allowed us to compare very different images through a shared structure and identify how each representation reflected a specific way of seeing the Solar System.
Link to the dataset
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KvleUGnZ65pnkitHW1Cpfbcoq9dREbgQBHVETdC4R2E/edit?usp=sharing
Process 02 — Visualization
Turning the archive into a spatial interface.
After structuring the data, we designed the visualization as an explorable Solar System rather than a traditional timeline. Each planet became a visual index connected to the archive, with image-based textures suggesting the coexistence of multiple representations across time.
The interface combines a dark space environment, orbit lines, yellow highlights and terminal-like typography to create a visual language between scientific navigation and archival exploration. The goal was to make the dataset feel spatial, immersive and readable at the same time.
Process 03 — Views in the Visualization
Designing three levels of exploration.
The final visualization is organized into three connected views. The first is the Solar System View, where users navigate a 3D scene and select planets as entry points. The second is the Planet View, where a single planet opens with a horizontal timeline of historical and scientific images. The third is the Detail View, where each image is connected to metadata such as date, author, technique, perception type and key notes.
This structure lets users move from a broad overview to specific archival sources, making the evolution of perception visible through interaction rather than through a fixed narrative.
The Outcome
Final direction, delivery and visual output.
The final outcome is an interactive web experience that transforms an archive of planetary representations into a navigable 3D system. Users can move from a full Solar System view to individual planet timelines, then open detailed source cards to understand the historical and cultural context behind each image.
The project shows that the Solar System is not only something we observe, but something we continuously represent through the tools, media and beliefs of each period.
