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First Stereograms of Mars from Spirit
An anonymous reader writes "NASA has made the first stereo image pairs from Spirit available. I've made stereo anaglyphs and arranged the full-size images side-by-side for stereo viewing. These are from the low-res black and white hazard avoidance camera, but still very cool. Anxiously awaiting the first stereo pairs from the panoramic cameras!"
I've been crossing my eyes for half an hour and I still can't see any damn beagle!
Looks good! I don't really see why you put up those red and green pictures though. I don't think many people get those out of their cerial boxes anymore... Wait.. What's this? OOO, stereo glasses! Cool!
Marvin knew: "Think of a number, any number..."
But how do I get this to work with Maestro?
The parallel approach works for me and it's very cool. Much better than the ugly red/blue tint that you get with the anaglyphs. The cross-eyed approach just makes my eyes hurt.
You just have to let your eyes relax and just sort of nudge the two images into convergence.
The only problem is convincing your friends and family that it works and trying to instruct them how to do it.
To avoid seeing this message again, always shut down your computer properly by selecting Shut Down from the Start Menu.
Still pictures? Nah, let me see some video from there? No? Didn't think so... no stereo streaming available.
-Is the meaning of life vanity, or is vanity the meaning of life?
Damn it, I was almost being productive. But now I have to run around looking for my red and blue glasses.
This message is encrypted with Quad ROT-13 to protect the author's copyright under the DMCA.
First Stereograms of Mars from Spirit
Thanks, but i'll wait for Lucasfilm to release the THX version - should be good!
Everytime I look at those new images, I can't help but just think how simple it would be to just send a craft over there and do a maned mission.
Surly it would be a lot easer then for sailers to sail around the world in the 1500s in comparison today. I think the technology is there, all we need is some human drive with those willing to risk their own life. Of course, the US...which based all of our major achivements is based on risk. But now days, the mere thought of death will totally can a project.
Personally, I would love to take a trip to mars. To hell with the "risks". To me, it would be worth it!!
Life is not for the lazy.
No, really, I did! But then the evil martian creatures came and ate them up, I guess i'll just have to wait for the next applejacks cereal box that has those glasses for me. Sad =\
Hmm. I submitted my own 3-D composites, but mine were rejected and these accepted. But if you'd like to see more of Mars in 3-D, my own stereoscopic pairs are posted here on Re:zine (Sunday, Jan. 4th, 'Mars In 3-D!'). The last of the four is artificially colorized using color samples from previous Mars expedition photos. Enjoy!
Check out what I'm working on! -- http://smaragd.DaveWard.net/
Screw HDTV, we need 3DTV. All those "megablaster 3d goggles" systems aside, looking at these pictures (which presumably came from just two cameras?) their clarity and sense of being there was cool! Either that or my brain has been defeated by pervasive use of mpeg/jpeg compression for everything (TV, Cable, Internet) I have never felt more like I was on mars (well, there was that one time at that bar, but I digress).
;^)
If have you have any doubts that 3DTV will one day happen, just think of the possibilities for pr0n (and remember that all technological advances have been subverted to distribute pictures of naked people faster.
--Robert
Now that I'm completely fucking blind, I'm sure my week will go a lot smoother now.
...so I can't see in stereo, you insensitive clod!
I was looking at those while installing windows2k. After crossing my eyes to see thhose, i tried to read the ms EULS and i'm now blind. thanks /. and ms.
OK, I really don't care/know that much about astronomy, etc.
But these pictures are just cool looking.
I do have 3-D glasses. I don't understand why hes using JPEGs. They just introduce ghosting. Especially with the darker ones.
PNGs are good for this sort of thing.
I believe JPEG also has a RGB mode which will eliminate ghosting.
If you have an nvidia card with the latest 3D stereo drivers you can run 3D LCD shutter glasses (assuming your monitor can run ~120 hz or better) and view JPS images in "real" 3D. All JPS images are are 2 JPGs side by side which the viewer splits in half and displays one half at a time per screen refresh.
I've made a few of my own JPS images simply by taking two pictures with my digital camera a few centimeters offset and combining the two resulting JPGs into one JPS file.
Trolling is a art,
heavy breathing, drooling and a tingling sensation...pure geek pr0n
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
Okay, where can I get some blue and red 3D glasses in this day and age? Preferably some big retail store so I don't have to go through mail order. Does someone know of a cheap book at Borders or Barnes and Noble with a pair of glasses in them?
In the age of HDTV, MPEG4, and THX; I am glad to know that stereo images still play a role in science. *g*
I read Slashdot in Lynx, I am a real geek.
Where did they buy this thing, the 1960s? Jeez, once you spend the first 9 $crillion, you'd think they'd throw in the extra ten bucks for color navigation cameras!
Judging by the way they "hurt" to focus on (I can usually do stereograms with little difficulty), I'd guess these result from the camera rotating about an axis behind the field of view (thus making them divergent rather than convergent pairs). But do they at least match the human 6.5cm separation, or something radically different?
Not to be a party pooper or anything , but I made stereo images earlier on today.
Posted 1-28 gmt
as did someone else shortly after (who put together a website)
posted 4-46
sad thing is that the guy that made the website did a better job of the one that hit the headlines.
The poster is getting credit for First stereogram pairs when someone else got their first.( I made the first one posted on slashdot) and the other guy made more images, a website and an article first but got rejected...
nick....
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
OKAY, maybe it was all the years of wearing a patch on my eyes, seriously I can NEVER see these things by crossing my eyes, sticking my finger up my nose, etc.
BUT what I do have is a vintage (circa 1890) Stero viewer, can these images be used in one of those ?
I figured Id ask before I spend 3 hours in my asbestos laden attic looking for it, hate to shorten my life if its not gonna let me see the scape in 3D
It looks like they dropped this Mars explorer out somewhere between Palmdale and Lancaster, CA. In fact... I think I can make out a meth-lab trailer in the distance.
. SLASHDOT: Home of the vicious nerd.
Isn't that what they call tatoos on your...
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I had found a page of the raw images from Spirit earlier today, and every picture from the rover was one of a pair -- it makes sense, because all the cameras are stereo cameras. It was really quite interesting to see the images in 3D as it showed that the ground has gently rolling hills (dune-like) and is not nearly as uniformly flat as it appears in the monocular images.
:(
Note that the cameras are about a foot apart in most cases, about 5 times the spacing between your eyes, so the 3D is exaggerated by the same amount (alternatively, you can think that it makes the world look 5 times as small.) It's amazing what the third dimension gives you.
Sadly, the amount of JPEG compression on these early images adds a huge amount of noise, that isn't apparent in the single images but makes the stereo pair look very noisy indeed. One would hope that once the high-gain antenna is configured, they can start sending far less compressed images.
The other sad thing is that I lost the URL of the raw images page
thad
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
Bowie J. Poag? Yeah, I remember using propaganda on RH6.x Gnome/E. Its cool enough, think these could make it into gnome desktops? Especially when they start getting color pics. Sometimes I use Earthrise.jpg from the apollo missions.
C|N>K
I prefer the parallel images to the cross-eyed ones. Crossing your eyes just hurts, but relaxing them and focusing them offscreen doesn't at all, you can do it forever practically if you can get a lock on the right amount to relax.
Just consider the distance to Mars and the time it takes to get there. Then consider the fact that you'd have to come back.
Even if there are people suicidal enough to volunteer for a one way trip, such a mission would never be approved because it's unethical. And from a purely objective standpoint, a suicidal team wouldn't have the emotional stability required on task of this magnitude. I certainly don't want to pack a bunch of lunatics/naive adventurers on a mission to Mars.
Saying that sending a human mission to Mars is simple doesn't make you a visionary, but actually very shortsighted.
Traditionally, a major problem with deep space probes has been developing a reliable way of retrieving image data from the probe. Things like cosmic rays, planetary obstruction and remote DoS attacks have traditionally meant that space probe software needed to be about 80% overbloated with proprietary algorithms for dealing with this stuff, and not the core business of transferring images back to Earth. During a planning session with my supervisor one day, it came clear to me what the solution could be...apt-get! Really, these space probes are nothing more than abstracted file servers making new 'image packages' available for download from time to time. apt-get had all the infrastructure that was needed, without needing to spend months coding up expensive proprietary NASA protocols to do the same thing.
In about a week, I had hacked together an apt-get prototype, using a modified apt.sources file which stored astronomical coordinates instead of IP addresses. When the ground controllers issued an 'apt-get spirit image upgrade' command, apt-get would check the apt.sources file, which contained the continually updated coordinates of the probe. Using a custom Z80 assembly language plugin I had developed, apt-get would then directly contact the telemetry and radio gear, align the dish in the correct orientation, and then update the packages from the space probe!! Since the images were encapsulated as a .deb package, they were nicely compressed, and could be checked if they were the latest version. A lot of people don't know thing (including some of the NASA top brass!) but the Spirit probe actually has a mini-ITX form factor PC motherboard inside the probe which runs a Perl script I developed to package up the image data as .debs ready for apt-get synchronisation back with Earth!! Ever wonder why that company that makes shoe-box ITX PCs is called 'Shuttle'? ;-) Me and some of the guys in the engineering group secretly removed a few experimental pods to fit the PC in, but we can just blame the non-functioning state of those experiments on the fact that they were running Windows CE! LOL!!!
So, the next time you see a news article about the Spirit Mars probe, take pride in the fact that Debian and apt-get are behind the scenes, making it all happen!!! apt-get touchdown!!!
Now I have to spend the next few days trying to find a pair of blue/red glasses. Should have planned ahead. Still - very cool, thanks for the pairs. Michael
Surely I can't be the only person who thought that when reading the story?
The trip to Mars is childs play compared to the longest Human durration on Mir. Valeriy Polyakov spent 483 days in that tin can between January 1994 and March 1995. And your going to tell me it can't be done!!!
And don't give me that Emotional stability crap. I've heard of submariners spend more time underwater. And they mind you, are doing just fine.
Life is not for the lazy.
Now where's that big red NOS button?
Oh, I know this will elicit lots of venom, but I'm wondering why we (the United States) as a nation are funding these types of billion dollar excursions. This is not "basic science", wonderful pictures of the Martian surface are not going to extend or increase anything but our knowledge of what kind of rocks are on the surface of Mars. These things, while interesting, will not solve any great national debates, increase out overall knowledge of the universe, or get us any closer to the useless inevitability of putting a human on Mars. These incredible landers do nothing more than allow a few dozen very smart scientists to write masters and doctors' theses. Is there a better way to spend this kind of public cash on something more valuable to more people? A much better place to spend this kind of cash would be on a successor to the Shuttle.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Take two toilet paper spindle tubes and place one over each eye. Then put the tubes in contact with each image. This ensures that each eye is only viewing the correct image.
When your wife/GF comes in asks what the hell you are doing- tell her you are looking for martians on the Intra-Web. Watch her leave the room- quickly.
I have no pants and I must scream
Can anyone explain the difference between parallel and cross eyed stereo vision?
A buddhist walks up to a hot dog stand and says ``Make me one with everything.''
Forgive me if I wait for the best or some interesting ones before I bother to look.
A Multiplayer Strategy Game for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux
Seems that NASA has actually lost the edge in robotic space exploration. Remember this little gem of a story submitted by someone from Switzerland and posted by Michael(who else).
Didn't Popular Science publish 3-D photos taken by the Viking mission to Marsin the 1970s?
Oh, by the way, here's the link I found that page at. Just leave the Karma on the dresser.
When I looked at the image using the cross-eye method, i got the distances reversed (closest was the furthest). Maybe my head is mis-wired...
The duration per se is only part of the problem.
Getting these people back is extremely complicated, and going on a one way mission by sending suicidal volunteers is not an option.
You obviously don't have a clue about the amount of junk (air, fuel, food, etc.) this would require, so I'll stop now.
Well I dug up my stereoscope viewer, dusted it off printed out 2 images, and pasted on a piece of cardboard, a little adjusting and VOILA ....REALLY COOL 3D, I found this link to build your own stereoscope, quite a bit different from mine but works on the same principals.
wheres the .jps?
Imagine if your spaceship was the Beagle 2, and not this NASA ship.
We mock what we don't understand.
Well, as I posted before I cant see these things without a Stereoscope, if you dont have an antique stereoscope lying around like I do
I found this HERE and HERE is a bit better one (more like mine:)
The second one gives a couple of different types , the 3x9 is for using cards like I made for mine or viewing the old cards from before like 1900 ish.
My stereo glasses came from inside a science magazine attached to a Pfizer ad about microbes to show the micrographs in 3D.
As an office joke I pasted the glasses which featured the Pfizer logo promenantly to my own ad...
NEW VIRTUAL VIAGRA!
Paint left side of penis blue, paint right side of penis red.
Penis Now Appears Erect!
Letter To Iran
I've created a quick Jiggy-Vision view of one of the sets.
Just FYI, and in a similar vein, when Pathfinder landed in 1999 I made a page with stereo pairs of the landing area (using images from Viking). Some of the hills, craters, etc., are pretty breathtaking when viewed in 3-D. Pathfinder landing site in 3-D Some interesting views taking from the Pathfinder lander, in stereo are here. --B
Nasa needs to send some naked chicks to mars.
A whole colony. Then and only then will I care.
that thinks mars looks kinda boring? It really just looks like desert or something. It would be nice if the photo's were color so you could get some feeling of what it really looks like. On the plus side, maybe Nasa will get a picture of that Beagle rover that crashed or whatever.
I suppose a lion or a horse might have more luck than a dog
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
anti-slash is fucked up right now, fix it, then come back with your trolling, fuckin' noob.
Can't get Maestro working on Mandrake 9.2!
Why don't people test using some of the major distros before putting out a release?
The first images are not very good ones to start with. I suggest browsing down to the first set of images that do not have parts of the rover in them (a set of small hills on the horizon). Also, try resizing the browser so that only the two images you are trying to combine are in view and place the browser on a plain background such as a reasonably uncluttered desktop. Try both the cross-eyed and parallel set of images if you do not know your method - you'll know when you have it right because there will be a slight topographic roll to the surface nearby.
Once you get those, try keeping your eyes situated in the same position and scrolling the other images up or down into your field of view without looking up or down. This will allow you to view the more difficult images with parts of the rover in them, which have sharp depth transitions between the solar panels, airbags, and ground.
Shouldn't we be able to see some kind of impacts from the craft bouncing along the surface? Or would wind have destroyed them already?
Oh yeah? Fagott!
Possibly the only useful thing about being short-sighted is that it can make viewing stereo images a lot easier. Just take your glasses off and you should find trying to focus slightly behind the image easier (i.e. the 'parallel method')
Obviously fakes. Taken in the desert right next to the old moon landing set. I hear that if you zoom in really close on the rover you can see the SCO trademark too.
I think I'll be taking these goggles to the bedroom tonight!
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
If you only need two photos for the 3D effect, why do you have an additional 3rd photo to the right?
To achieve the effect you need image 1 and 2 (from left to right). If you use image 2 and 3 the depth is backwards.
I assume image 4 is to be viewed with special glasses, and it only requires that picture.
So why Image 3? Am I missing something here?
NASA posted an image gallery? The battle is set now The might of a slashdotting vs the awsome power of NASA's servers who will win? compulsively refresh their page to find out
You can buy a modern stereoscope to view these images here. It's a nifty little device that folds up into a small cube, and lets you view side-by-side images on your screen, or on paper, regardless of the image size. Works well, and is much easier than trying to cross your eyes.
Seems that NASA has actually lost the edge in robotic space exploration. Remember this little gem of a story submitted by someone from Switzerland and posted by Michael(who else).
Spirit: Windows 95 (patched for 49 days reboot bug)
Beagle II: Linux
Is it possible that there was a problem during one of Beagle's daily kernel recompiles?
You'd think it was worth it only if you survived.
Ask yourself this question... the people who go on Fear Factor... the people who fly solo across Antarctica... the people who sail across the Pacific alone, with no radio... I bet most of them are in pretty great shape. I bet you could get 1000 of them to volunteer for a manned Mars mission in 2006 in a heartbeat. I bet out of that 1000 -- these are people who climb mountains and run triathalons, remember -- at least 50 or 100 of the candidates would be able to pass a training program and be "able" to fly to Mars. Especially if we build our ships right -- let the machines and the computers do most the work and train these people to do what they already get off on doing: surviving.
When they're there -- they can take pictures of the rocks the mission wants, take the soil samples of the areas the mission asks... things space agencies spend billions for each primitive 100 kg. robot to do one time... Why not instead send out tens of manned missions? Do it right. And sure, we might lose 1 trip out of 3. More at first. I bet ANY of these people would be MORE than willing to go... AND you'd be saving money!!! Tons of money. The first crew that arrived successfully... think of it. Think of the presige. The honor of having your name go down as that man or woman in history? And think of all the experiments they we perform with PEOPLE there... Just imagine! And if they were to arrive home... what it could do for the world...
Does this sound brutal? To me it feels visionary -- it makes just so much common sense; why don't people ever spell it out like this? Let people freely decide if they are willing to take that risk. Here we are, legalizing assisted suicide across the Western world but we don't have the balls to let adventurers sign up for one of the last ULTIMATE adventures???
I would have to say that explosives are the most abused technology in all of history.
Daily kernel recompiles? Dude, U R ! leet unless U R using the hourly tree.
Karma: The shiznight, mostly because I am the Drizzle.
Although less boulders are better for roving, few rocks and flat land make for somewhat boring stereograms. Hopefully it will wonder into a big lumpy pile one of these coming weeks.
Table-ized A.I.
Quicktime VR available on SpaceRef here.
after the seizure, my head hurts...
Hey ma, look, it's piece of Euroshit! Get a sense of humor, fuckwit, or maybe you should try loosening up those tight black gay eurojeans you wear.
You do realize, don't you, that people sailed around the world in the 16th Century. On a regular basis. Not all of them made it. Many died. On each voyage. We didn't know how to desalinate water then. We didn't have radio then. Hell, we didn't know about sanitation then. Doctors didn't wash their hands for another 300 years still. Even a simple thing like vitamin C to prevent scurvy was centuries off...
...or do you think the Chinese are faking it when they say they are going to the moon by 2020? Do you think they aren't planning to go to Mars and mine the astroids? This is China, where millions have been displaced in the last few years -- entire cities moved -- for a DAM that is being built ... today! You don't think they plan ahead? Shouldn't we?
But still people did it. They explored. Because they know the long term payoff was there. And that there were willing souls ready to go now... and that the rewards and the victory go to the strong and the brave. The timid sit back and let others collect.
Rome faltered when it got soft. It became brittle. The people were interested in bloody spectacles... infighting and political intrigue took over in the Senate. Then Barbarians with a different religion attacked -- Of course Rome could always defeat them -- but again and again they attacked until finally the capital fell.
Just a random historical bit of trivia to throw at the end of my rant... It wasn't supposed mean anything...or maybe it was. Look, all I know is that someone from our generation needs to start inspiring people. Let's go to Mars and stop worrying so much, OK? Humanity NEEDS this and people are tougher than you think.
I would have to say that explosives are the most abused technology in all of history.
I love it. It's the year 2004. We have sucessfully landed another probe on mars, and we're all hunting around in our junk drawers for 50's style 3D glasses.
I just hope we don't find any life on mars with this mission or we'll all be looking for tin foil to wrap around our heads.
For those not lucky enough to own tons of these, or too cheap tp run to OfficeMax and grab 2 pieces of colored projector acetate, I present you with dirt cheap and free 3D glasses sources....
1
2
3
4 -- (RC 912 being my favorite ones...)
5 -- (This lovely book has a set of glasses, and a REAL reason to own a pair...)
I was actualy surprised to see the first 2 photos, using the "cross eyed" method. I am fairly used to seeing stereograms in chemistry and biology textbooks, and they have exclusively used the second and third photo group method for viewing stereograms - kind of a stare into the distance and the image will appear method. The cross eye method (pics 1&2) seem more tiring to look at for any length of time.
..........FULL STOP.
Hmm... where's Waldo?
I'll remind you of that when I make a joke about your next crashed space probe/shuttle. When you're all whining again about the pathetic "heroes" that died or get annoyed about hearing the same metric conversion joke for the 1000th time.
And what the fuck is a gay eurojeans? Thanks god I'm wearing baggies.
So why are all the pictures black and white?
The power of Christ compiles you!
I believe the original poster is mistaken, or I'm not seeing it. The little square images are parts of the mosaic which comprise the panorama. They are NOT taken with the stereo camera as far as I can tell.
A blog like any other.
They could have slapped a $300 5 megapixel on that puppy and then we'd have quality images to look at when it got to Mars.
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
Unfortunately, 2/3 of the Mars missions that have been launched so far have failed. I wouldn't call that very simple.
I think maybe a manned mission would be more reasonable once we get at least half the robots we launch to survive the landing. Considering that these rovers can probably survive harsher conditions (heat, G forces, shocks, etc.) than a human, and the systems for keeping the robot alive are a lot less complicated, we'd probably want an even higher success rate than that first.
Of course, I'm sure the technology is there, too. I'm just not sure the experience is. There are a lot of variables that we don't have a good working knowledge of between here and the Martian surface.
I was wondering if anyone at NASA could help the scientists at home with any calibration information for the stereo cameras.
I saw the fields of view listed on the rover website:
Navcams 45 degree
Hazcams 120 degree
Pancams ? degree
Also I was wondering if you could list the distance between lenses, if the lenses are parallel, and/or how you are calibrating the range finder.
Thanks for all of your work
Just remember to suck your thumb when you e-mail them your request. http://www.spacekids.com/freestuff/
A few of you have complained about the quality of the images. At the time the pictures were transmited, the rover only had its less powerfull (low bandwidth) antenna deployed.
u s.html
from:
http://spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/stat
MONDAY, JANUARY 5, 2004
0610 GMT (1:10 a.m. EST)
"A few minutes before 12:30 a.m. EST today, the first direct-to-Earth communications session over the high-data-rate antenna began"
So, we should be seeing better images soon.
Most people already KNOW how to read those pictures by looking 'at infinity' making their eyes see in parallel directions. It's a simple concept. The problem is that it's not actually phyisically possible for many people, myself included. The problem is that there often is NO way for them to put the aim of their eyeballs under conscious control. Those muscles can't be moved directly like a bicep can. For some of us, those muscles are involuntary. We just think "I want to look, *there*, and some low-level process we don't consciously percieve does the rest. Thus we lack the ability to decouple focus distance from directional aim of the eyes. (So, if we want to make our eyes look "in paralel", it automatically also triggers the muscles that alter the shape of the eye to focus at infinity. We can't seperate the two because it was never learned as a conscious voluntary act. For us, trying to focus close while not aiming the eyes at a close point (angling inward) is like trying to consciously tell our stomachs to stop digesting food. We don't know the control mechanism to do that, and we never needed to learn it until stereograms came out. The brain pathway to give us that control just isn't there.
It's like trying to wriggle my ear. I don't know what muscle to flex to make that happen.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
you need to put your Spy Kids 3D glasses on backasswards. Cool though.
Setting his threshold to 5, Sparky eliminated most of the trolls on /.
I saw little green men with a sign that said we need women.
I assume they are trying to avoid the embarassing problem of releasing a blue sky photo or something. Haven't they got the color calibration right yet?
you WERE the only one thinking it...until now. Yech!!!!
Setting his threshold to 5, Sparky eliminated most of the trolls on /.
You can go ahead and make fun of our probes that crash. Especially the metric/imperial one. That deserves to be made fun of. I've done it many times myself.
*BUT*
Don't you DARE make fun of or insult ANYONE whose lives are lost in ANY space program ANYWHERE.
That's why parallel viewing is easier for me than cross-eyed viewing -- focusing at 10 feet is almost identical to focusing at infinity (just look at the non-linear scale on a camera lens!)
So if I get a few feet back from the monitor,
pretend I'm looking even further away, and
no matter which I've focused on (the monitor
or infinity) it's very close to proper focus.
Crossed eyed it's easier and faster to achieve than parallel, though it does get tiring. Parallel is so hard to acheive, but when you get a lock on parallel, it's much more satisfying that crossed eyed.
I hope that made sense.
Perhaps someone (not me) should throw together something like this.
Aaahh!!! My eyes! The goggles - they do nothing!!!
Hmmm...
-cp-
President Bush to Liberate Alaska!
Gayest. "Joke." Ever.
todays policitally correct enviornment and would not let the brave souls make the trip
I'm not so sure about that. I can't really think of anything somewhat similar that is politically impossible, but maybe I'm not thinking of the right things.
Todays climate has little problem sending US soldiers to die in Iraq with far less volontariness and pay.
Besides, it doesn't have to be a US operation and US crew.
nasa.gov only has JPEGs of the images on their website.
This is the issue then. Can somebody at NASA please release some raw images? Natural Three-d viewing is hard enough, and JPEG artifacts makes it worse.
The images are AWESOME, and the fact that they got posted online so quickly is fantastic. I'm just saying, if you have the raw data, please post that too. Thank you from all of us!
Partly my problem is I cannot willinging fail to focus on that which is right in front of me. If my eyes notice an object about a foot away from my face, something in my subconsious automatically moves my eyes to narrow on it and focus at that length - and it's reflexive. I can no more avoid that than I can willingly leave my hand on a hot stove. It's hard to describe to someone who hasn't experienced it, but a lot of my muscle motions are not under conscious control. Apparently as a baby, my brain learned to think of body movement as something for the subconscious to deal with, and all my learned motions are based on higher-level tasks. For example, I cannot deliberately smile for a picture. If I feel genuine mirth, then I smile. If I don't, I can't fake it no matter how hard I try. The mental pathway that leads to "make corners of mouth curl up" is "wired" to run through the emotions. I can't make the movement without first feeling the associated emotion to go with it.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
I would, but I can't think of anything funny.
Perhaps... something about being flat as a pancake or giving up smoking was all for not.
Reading about the computer on the rover I noticed this..
"Unlike people and animals, the rover brains are in its body. The rover computer (its "brains") is inside a module called "The Rover Electronics Module" (REM) inside the rover body."
Unlike the folks at NASA I keep my brains in my body. Though I suppose placing my brains in a rover would make for an interesting out of body experience.
Sit... Speak.... Shake.... Good Dog!
I used to be dyslectic, but after crossing my eyes for half an hour I'm cured!
It should be possible to learn both things above. I did.
Check out the cartoon at: www.mars.fm Peace, Rx
Surely, these could be from a post-apocalyptic Afganistan?
The space shuttle Columbia walks into a bar.
Bartender: "You look unhappy -- what's the problem?"
Columbia: "I just broke up with my crew."
That's quite invidual. For some of us, getting lock on parallel is very easy and even fast, while getting a focus while cross-eyed is nigh impossible.
Though there are limits, and the bigger the picture the harder it gets, at some point it's just impossible to get eyes any more separated - crossing supposedly allows for a bigger maximum size.
and people are tougher than you think.
That argument works fine on Earth, where you could fall out of your ship, or get stranded on an island and live off the land. Mars has virtually no atmosphere (7mbar, only 0.15% oxygen), and the average temperature is -55degC. There is no potential for "living off the land" without serious engineering work. Man is fairly tough in his natural environment, but this is a whole new ball game.
Ydco co
At least the color image is swapped in my opinion. As they are presented your left eye has to focus the right pic and vice versa, so the picture is in front of your monitor. I can not see this.
I swapped them and can see it easyly (now inside the monitor). Great pics (now)!
- history on ALL past Mars attempts (those poor soviets...)
- *many* JPL and NASA pages, diagrams, videos, and photos
- info on sterescopic photos
- Sterescopic layout of Spirit's first round of photos
- Quicktime VR of the Spirit's panoramic view
- etc.
Here is the page:2004 Mars Exploration Rover Mission History and Highlights:
http://axonchisel.net/etc/space/mars-exp-rover-hi
1) I made stereo pix of the Mars images over a day ago. Posted a link here on Slashdot, and it was rejected. WTF? Did somebody let Timothy out of his playpen or something?
2) Have a look, no 3D glasses required.
Bowie J. Poag
Any new pictures of the Martian landscape are very cool, but I have to question the choice of the landing site. Gusev Crater may be very interesting in a macro sense, it probably contains lacustrine sediments. But are these sediments accessable to the rover which has landed in the middle of a featureless plain? I doubt it. It is more likely that it will just sample the ubiquitous dust and rock ejecta, again. There may be no significant exposures of the stratigraphic section nearby. When will one of these missions truely explore the fantastic landscape revealed from orbit?
an ill wind that blows no good
*cragen
Any way to hack Spirit and Opportunity bots and have a martian robot wars?
for crying out loud
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Well at first I was like... HE GOT ME! But thereafter I came to learn that NASA employs a team of ELITE HORTICULTURISTS who engaged in lawnmower operations in the area in questions.
. SLASHDOT: Home of the vicious nerd.
It looks pretty bland. Just small rocks with occasional sand basins.
The horizon is 3km away, which is about 20-30 days of straight-line trips. Is there anything interesting over the horizon? They might go towards one of the grooves showing on the descent pictures. That could be an old water channel.
AAHHHH! A FACE! Life on Mars! THE ALIENS ARE HERE!
If the stereogram is on glossy paper, try to catch a glare on it, and then try to focus on the glare itself. That may help.
The previous sig has been removed due to
Thank you for providing x-eye, wall-eye, and colored stereograms.
(for private fun later)
e x.html && grep IMG index.html | sed -e "s/<IMG SRC=\"//g" | sed -e "s/\">//g" | sed -e "s/<\/NOBR><P>//g" | sed -e "s/<xIMG SRC=\"//g" | grep http | xargs -i wget '{}'
wget http://hazyhills.com/mars3d/spirit/firstlight/ind
Honestly, for a really long time I was never able to do the 'parallel method' until I actually sat down with a magic-eye pic and spent several moments on infuriating practice. Once you sort of get it with easy stuff like magic-eye pics you'll get a feel for what your eyes need to do. It's kind of like conciously flexing a muscle for the first time.
Hey, if those mind-monks can stab themselves with 20 needles without pain, then I'm sure the rest of us can figure out parallel fusion of images.
Bush(TM) thinks every life is so fucking precious that we can't use a two day old stem cell to research cures for almost everything, but we can send thousands to die in wars as needed. ???????!?!
> Yes, but why is there even a black and white camera on board? What possible advantage can it have over a color one?
Bandwidth. The BW camera is a navigation camera, and to be most useful, it needs to have just enough resolution to make it possible to navigate, and smallest data size per picture possible so that more pictures can come through the limited bandpipe. Therefore, it's the best choice to use a low-res BW camera for the task.
Virg
Aren't they supposed to be in color? Or are these just paliminary photos? I was reading space.com, and they said the photo quality would be good enough to toss an image on an imax theater screen.
Just wondering
A Penny for my thoughts? Here's my two cents. I got ripped off!
The anaglyphs in the article are poorly made.
Just wanted to reply and say that you aren't alone: I have the same problem. I've always hated those screwed up 3D pictures - I just can't see the sailboat.
-Ryan, with the unoriginal sig
Oh yes, of course... Their lives are obviously more important than the countless other lives lost every day because they are celebrities. People who know the risks and take them gladly. Cry me a river. I'll mourn someone who didn't know the risks and died long before some test pilot/astronaut.
Cleaned up, less disortion, brighter... http://www.waterspan.com/
My wife was looking at me with a mixture of confusion and distain when she saw me with my face up against my monitor, looking cross-eyed at grainy pictures of rocks.
But hey, this is cool. It's almost like looking at REAL rocks!
"Proudly Posting Without Reading The Article"
Even the "color" cameras are black and white. They have nifty color wheels that rotate over them, and the unit takes pictures in succession to get the red, green, blue, IR, and several other shades i'm nor sure of.
Why do they do it this way? With the exception of the relatively new Foveon CCDs, "color" digital still and video cameras work in one of two ways-- 3 CCDs and a prism that splits the colors off to each CCD, or 1 CCD that has a grid of R, G, or B pixels arranged in blocks like this:
RG
GB
Note that this means your true full-color resolution is about 1/4 the advertised value (yes, your 4 megapixel digicam actually has 1MP red, 1MP blue, and 2MP green). Most digicams (except the Foveon CCDs and 3CCD video cameras) work this way, and use neighboring values to calculate the full RGB value at each pixel.
Using a single CCD and color filters gets you the accuracy of a 3CCD camera minus the weight and power consumption of two extra CCDs and a prism. It has the disadvantage of not being so good for fast action shots in color. Fortunately, those rocks are sitting pretty still. If something fast should happen, and the camera happens to catch it, we will still have a nice sharp B&W image of it.
Never done it crosseyed. Tried, but never saw 3D. I can see it paralell though. What I have to do is stick the palm of my hand between my eyes, That way, the only way the images can come into focus is when I am looking at them paralelly ( is that a word? )
Eat at Joe's.
I used to have the same problem. I trained myself however by staring at a wall at least twice as far away as the actual image you want to look at. Keep staring at the wall for a bit until you can sort of "feel" the position of your eyes. That may sound kind of confusing but think of it just as you know what direction you're looking even though the eyes are closed, only this is for more of what you're trying to focus on. I find if you can sort of feel the position ( as in focusing) your eyes are in you can have more control over them. Then, try and think about something else as you slowly slide the image in front of your eyes, all the while trying to maintain your eye position. You'll have to play around a bit with distances of the wall, image and whatnot, but that's how I trained myself.
As for smiling and stuff, I can fake it, but it looks horribly unnatural, as is the case with most people, I can almost always tell when they're faking a smile or some other emotion. Are you saying you actually cannot physically form the smile shape of your mouth? That I've never heard of. Also, for the hot stove, I used to be the same way. We were making a fire once in an indoor fireplace (it was actually one of those cylindrical ones that aren't stone or built into the wall) when the logs started falling and hit the gate, knocking it off the fireplace. I had to reach the gate, and hold it in place (basically just pushing on it with my palms) while the fire and burning embers starting hitting my palms. Finally my friend got something to keep the gate in place so that we could put out the fire. I got some minor burns on my hand, nothing to go the hospital over, so it wasn't too bad. Ever since then, I've been able to consciencly put my hand on a hot stove (though I don't, it's just an analogy).
WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
Another good way to get close to the distance, so you can see the 3D image possibly slightly out of alignment and adjust is to light your face and look at the reflection from the picture/monitor surface to get the equal distance focus into the picture/monitor.
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unethical???
I "can" move my mouth, but it doesn't look like a smile, partly because the corners of my mouth don't end up curling "up", but rather they curl "in".
With the eyes, one thing I have noticed is that I have problems trying to see things through a screen window if I'm standing within about half a meter of the window. When I'm that close, my eyes notice the wire mesh and keep trying to focus on *it* instead of what's past it. The only way I can fix that is to nod my head back a forth a little bit, which gives some motion blur to the wire mesh. Then my eyes will ignore it and focus past it to the outside (because then each part of the image is only covered up by a piece of wire mesh for an instant and then the mesh is "moved" to the next part of the image, and my brain complelete ignores the wire mesh. I can't even see it anymore - my brain just assumes it's getting a flickery image, like when watching a TV or computer screen.)
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Making fun of ANY lost lives is socially unacceptable, and you're an asshole if you do it.. Oh, I normally don't swear, so I have rather strong feelings towards the subject to say that.. So yeah, SHUT UP! those people had families, and those families were hurt, the people on the crew were great people.. Sure, space travel is rather new, but it's gone relatively flawless for awhile... The risks in going to space are probably equal to the risks involved in getting on a plane.. HEY, lets all make fun of the people on those airplanes that got hijacked on 9/11! Why not? There was the risk of the plane getting hijacked, I'm sure THEY knew that, about as much as columbia's crew knew there was a risk in the shuttle blowing up.. So yeah, all those people on the planes were huge suckers for getting on them... freaking idiots.. No one's death should be put before everyone else's, I'm not saying theirs should, but have some heart..