milky: The Drake Equation Graphical Simulator

The Drake Equation graphical simulator (milky.cpp, see Appendix A) was developed in C++ using the OpenGL graphics library. The first step was to create a graphics shell, a standard C++ program that creates a graphics environment. Next, special coding was needed to impliment textures which were used to display the galaxy in background. Then, the Drake Equation was added in the form of an alien civilization density. The probability of finding an alien civilization in a given grid square was set equal to the density. Finally, a control window was added to allow the user to change Drake factors.

Figure 1: The black dots represent squares with alien civilizations.

Figure 2: The control panel for milky.