Managing and Visualizing Spatial Information of Small Solar-System Bodies by Using WebGIS- and VR-Based Technologies

Rapid advances in deep-space exploration are drawing increasing attention from geode-sists and creating an urgent demand for effective management and visualization of deep-space object information. This paper presents a comprehensive study on methods for managing and visualizing small celestial bodies’ “orbit–shape–field” spatial information, including geometric shape, orbital simulation and gravitational fields. We develop an in-tegrated solution that combines a backend spatial database, a web frontend and a virtual reality (VR) frontend. On the backend, we design and implement a database to catalog heterogeneous small-body information efficiently, where partitioned tables are adopted to support scalable storage, fast querying and convenient updates. On the web frontend, Spacekit.js and Cesium.js are integrated to simulate coordinated solar-system motion of planets, comets and asteroids (both rotation and revolution) while enabling rapid loading and rendering of gravitational vector fields. On the VR frontend, we build a standalone Unreal Engine 5 application that renders orbits with spline curves consistent with the web results and supports cooperative multi-body motion in immersive exploration. Finally, performance tests are conducted to recommend VR hardware configurations and practical data-loading scales for smooth gravitational-vector rendering and interaction. These methods support analysis workflows and have potential value for deep-space science.