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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!
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.
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.
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.
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/
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.
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
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.
you dont yet, they will release detailed imagery and data updates packages as it they are constructed.
Check back on their website - they estimate about one update per week.
liqbase
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.
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.
The August 1998 issue of National Geographic came with two pairs, ironically enough to view stereo images as taken by NASA's last successful Mars lander, Pathfinder.
That's what I used to view the current images. So if you know someone with a National Geographic collection dating back that far you can borrow them, or if you're really keen you can head down to your local library, find the issue in question (hopefully with at least one pair of the glasses still inside), take it to an available library internet terminal, bring up the page in question, and view away.
Yaz.
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.
So if you know someone with a National Geographic collection dating back that far you can borrow them, or if you're really keen you can head down to your local library, find the issue in question (hopefully with at least one pair of the glasses still inside), take it to an available library internet terminal, bring up the page in question, and view away.
I just used a Tostitos bag and a coat hanger.
Please don't mod me as funny...
Bored with karma, be a fan/freak
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
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.
30cm with 1 degree toe-in. Ya, close stuff can hurt a bit to view.
This camera undoubtably has a set of filters on it which permit it to image in a variety of wavelengths. Color images will come, they will take individual red, green, blue exposures and combine them. They can probably image all the way from near ultraviolet to low infrared.
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
We mock what we don't understand.
Imagine if Beagle 2 was a manned mission. We'd sure as hell at least know what happened. And the majority of failed mars missions have failed because there was something wrong that couldn't be fixed by remote. If there was someone on hand to reach over and tweak the long-range antenna, I'm positive the percantage of successful missions would be much higher.
---- El diablo esta en mis pantalones! Mire, mire!
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
The cross-eyed pairs are where your left eye looks at the right picture and your other eye looks at the left picture. On the linked story page, these are the two left-most images.
I think the parallel stereograms (left image->left eye, right image->right eye) are easier and more comfortable to view because there is less perspective distortion as each eye can be directly in front of the part it needs to see. The two center images on the page make a parallel stereo pair. To view these, just look at some imaginary point several feet behind your display. When you do this, everything close to you will appear in double. Relax your eyes and adjust them so the two stereo images converge (you may have to tilt your head a little to get them perfectly horizontal). When the images overlap enough, your eyes will automatically "lock on" and a glorious patch of 3D will appear!
"Leave the strategizing to those of us with planet-sized brains." -Tycho
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?
Nav pictures need to come back quickly and accurately over a very slow link, just in case. And the quality needs to be enough to navigate by, and no more. (cause more quality = longer transmission times, thus less photos to nav by). Don't worry, the high quality color cams will be really fantastic when they get going. One thing at a time.
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
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
IANARS, but I would bet that the bandwidth for transmitting data is the main constraint, not the cost of the navcams.
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.
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.
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...)
It's the damn martians! They keep shooting down our probes!! This one must have landed near an unsettled area.
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
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.
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
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.
So why are all the pictures black and white?
Because they aren't using their color cam yet.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Mars' atmosphere is not dense enough to cause the light-scattering and light-filtering which makes Earth's sky appear blue. However, the Martian atmosphere is loaded with suspended dust particles. (Remember, this is the planet which is sometimes almost entirely shrouded by colossal, seasonal dust storms.)
The dust particles in Mars' thin atmosphere are larger than what we usually find in our own atmosphere. The large dust particles scatter longer wavelengths of light--i.e., the red spectrum. Thus, the pinkish tan color of Mars' atmosphere.
Here's some excellent information about the color of the sky on Mars.
See? A little education and science goes a long way to calm and debunk conspiracy paranoia. ;)
Check out what I'm working on! -- http://smaragd.DaveWard.net/
The NASA website calls them RAW images. The Rover may have sent the images in JPEG format. The term RAW most likely isn't refering to the RAW image that the camera captured, because then it would probably be much larger and in color.
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
Spirit is an entirely different story. The images we've seen so far are just from positioning/navigation cameras which only image in b&w. But I believe the first color images from the high-res, color cameras are due to reach us any time now. We should have high-res color pics sometime today.
Spirit has far better batteries, lots more energy, and a much longer mission schedule. Where Sojourner was expected to run for just 7 days, Spirit and Opportunity are expected to run for 90 days. The mission schedules this time are more deliberate and meticulous.
Today Spirit is going to begin to put down it's wheels and "stand up." But that whole process with take two days. And it won't actually roll off the pad and onto Martian soil until the 9th or 10th day after the landing.
So just have patience. We should see the first color pictures today, and Spirit will start puttering around the surface by the middle of next week.
Failure to provide instant gratification isn't a sign of general failure, nor an indicator of conspiracy. ;)
* Here's the Mars Pathfinder mission web site
* And here's an overview of the current Spirit & Opportunity missions.
Check out what I'm working on! -- http://smaragd.DaveWard.net/
- 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
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
That's because the high-gain antenna wasn't deployed until last night, and these pictures were sent before then.
... because they wore red uniforms.
Anaglyphs aren't generally done in color anyway -- it can work but only with certain "neutral" tones that are the same brightness through both red and green/cyan cellophane used in 3D glasses -- because the colors in the color photo can interfere with the anaglyphic process and skew the brain's perception of the 3D effect. Color pictures of Mars are a no-no - you DO NOT use images of red or green/blue objects or you'll ruin the effect entirely as one eye will see the red/blue objects much more brightly than the other. For this reason, Sports Illustrated Magazine's special issue for the Olympics a few years ago ran an apology for not having any anaglyphic shots of the Chinese athletes
Step one in the process I use to make anaglyphs: Strip out color (convert to greyscale). I work in an electron microscopy research lab and we process nearly everything into anaglyph format, so I do this all the time. You can fiddle with the gamma/brightness/contrast all you want, but color is a no-no. This means that when I make my own color anaglyphs (with better alignment than the ones linked in the article) -- looking forward to the high-res shots -- the color goes poof before ANYTHING else gets done to the images.
i am a soviet space shuttle
Stand-up and roll-off is expected to take as long as a week, actually. But we'll see a lot of data returned before the rover even moves.
i am a soviet space shuttle
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.
I'm extremely nearsighted but I can't make the 'parallel' method work, glasses on or off. On the other hand, I can make all the "cross-eyed' pairs work, including the last ones that are supposed to be too big for that.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.