I have started working on a set of utilities to randomly generate star systems and worlds for generic science fiction settings. However, currently one of the core bits of work is a reader to parse Traveller UWP data and use that as the basis for the star maps.

Generation of star systems is relatively straightforward, generation of worlds is somewhat harder, since I've decided that I want a unique map for every world.

As an additional bonus, I have output routines which allows everything to be fed into Celestia.

The first phase is to generate data for the galaxy. This has been done using information I've collected form various sources on the web. Unfortuneately, there doesn't appear to be a single source of Traveller UWP data available for the Third Imperium, but I've pieced together what I can (with the suspicion that some of it is post-Virus).

I've taken this data, and generated whole star systems for each world. The end results can be seen here. The source code is under a free license, though since it's a bit of a pain for me to stick a link to the latest copy, mail me if you want it.

World generation is the difficult bit. Not the placement of planets in their orbits, or deciding how big they are or whether they are inhabitable (we know so little about how all this works, that as long as it looks vaguely right, it should be okay). No, the difficult bit is the surface of the planets and the cultures on them.