Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

3D Martian Flyover Movies

Posted by kdawson on from the wheee dept.

Matthew Sparkes writes "NASA has created two virtual flyovers of the Mars rover landing sites using 3D imagery from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (New Scientist story here). The images were made using the most powerful camera ever sent to another planet, MRO's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE). The three-dimensional information is obtained by taking pairs of images from slightly different vantage points as the spacecraft orbits the Red Planet."

23 of 69 comments (clear)

  1. I want my tax dollars back... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 3, Funny

    ...I don't see any Transformers in the movie.

    1. Re:I want my tax dollars back... by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 2, Funny

      ...I don't see any Transformers in the movie.

      They're advanced robots, they spotted the flyover cameras and hid in their camouflaged hiding spots when the satellites flew over.

      --
      -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
    2. Re:I want my tax dollars back... by LotsOfPhil · · Score: 2, Funny

      me too:
      $ mplayer 171471main_Victoria480.mov
      ...
      Fourcc: avc1 Codec: 'H.264'
      ...

      --
      This post climbed Mt. Washington.
    3. Re:I want my tax dollars back... by Kozar_The_Malignant · · Score: 2, Funny

      ...I don't see any Transformers in the movie. Look closer. There's one in the first video. It's on the left of the POV just before it flies over the rim of the crater. Fortunately, it doesn't react quickly enough to get a shot off.
      --
      Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
  2. Its a start... by Shadow+Wrought · · Score: 2, Funny

    At least they are now admitting when their footage is fake.

    --
    If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
  3. But what will the mysterons make of this? by ijakings · · Score: 2, Funny

    They wont like it, ill bet that much.

  4. that's not mars... by notgm · · Score: 4, Funny

    It's the Excel 97 easter egg.

  5. Vista Pro by Excelcia · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I was using Vista Pro over 10 years ago to do flyovers on Mars. I made some great movies flying over and around Olympus Mons. The images that it generated with simple texturing and DEM formatted landscape data was almost as good (considering resolution differences) as what I see there. I am singularly unimpressed with what they have now. Better yet, with a few changes in rendering rules, I could "terraform" Mars and see what Olympus Mons would look like with water and a treeline. I may see if I can dig out my old DOS copy of Vista Pro and play with it again.

    1. Re:Vista Pro by bubbl07 · · Score: 2, Funny

      You were using Vista 10 years ago? It's buggy and unstable now, I can't imagine the state it was in 10 years ago, let alone for something as intensive as Mars flyovers. You'd better cross your fingers that you don't get a BSOD...

    2. Re:Vista Pro by PitaBred · · Score: 2, Interesting

      There's lots of other neat software out there (see the sig)

      --
      My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
    3. Re:Vista Pro by the_wishbone · · Score: 2, Funny

      You're about to do a flyover on Mars.

      (C)ancel or (A)llow?

    4. Re:Vista Pro by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      If that's your thing, you should check out Terragen, which is free for personal use. There are even people who have already imported the geological data for Mars, for National Geographic no less. It's pretty-pretty.

    5. Re:Vista Pro by phlosoft · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The images that it generated with simple texturing and DEM formatted landscape data was almost as good (considering resolution differences) as what I see there. I am singularly unimpressed with what they have now. And where do you think that digital elevation model came from? The news here isn't the 3D rendering engine, it is the acquisition of the 3D data + textures in the first place -- it is that they are automatically building the highest resolution DEM of Mars ever acquired using high resolution stereo imagery. But you're right, now that they've done the easy, unimpressive part, I'm sure we'd all love to see what amazing things you can do with their model in Vista Pro.
    6. Re:Vista Pro by samwichse · · Score: 2, Informative

      You can download Vista Pro 3 here: http://fraktali.849pm.com/programs/dem.html

  6. I hope martians are 3D by Jeff+DeMaagd · · Score: 3, Funny

    I think it would be disappointing if Martians were only 2D, and scary if they were 4D.

    1. Re:I hope martians are 3D by 26199 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Oh, I don't know. Having a 2D martian as a pet would be quite cool.

      Cheap to feed :)

      4D would also be neat. Handy for getting in and out of locked rooms.

  7. 3D Martian Flyover Movies! by BubbaFett · · Score: 2, Funny

    So, not only is there intelligent life on Mars, we've got 3D footage of them flying over us? Do they appear threatening? Any evidence of abduction?

  8. What is the height exaggeration? by jiawen · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What height exaggeration were the flyovers done with? NASA has a long history of doing planetary animations that make things look way taller than they actually are, apparently in an attempt to make the animations appeal more to the public. Are these flyovers similarly exaggerated? If so, I'm not interested.

    1. Re:What is the height exaggeration? by JetJaguar · · Score: 2, Informative

      I think the one of Victoria Crater is probably about right. The stereo anaglyphs that were made are exagerated because the convergence angles were larger than the angles for human eyes. This fly over using the DEM looks about right though. I'm less certain about the Columbia Hills flyover, it looks a little exagerated to me, but I saw a presentation of Randy Kirk's a couple of weeks ago, and I got the impression that the height field has not been expanded in any of the movies that he has done, they are all straight from the DEM.

      --

      Shop Smart, Shop S-mart!

    2. Re:What is the height exaggeration? by PhotoGuy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      What height exaggeration were the flyovers done with? NASA has a long history of doing planetary animations that make things look way taller than they actually are, apparently in an attempt to make the animations appeal more to the public. Are these flyovers similarly exaggerated? If so, I'm not interested.

      You see the same thing with stereoscopic aerial photographs of earth. I believe that around here (Nova Scotia), when you view the Department of Natural Resources photos in stereo, you get something like a 10-to-1 exaggeration of height. It's not a marketing thing to "appeal more to the public", but allows one to actually notice height differences. If it weren't for the exaggeration, we wouldn't be able to perceive any height differences. The world really is amazingly flat (consider the view from space, it looks like a perfect sphere). Without some exaggeration, perhaps NASA videos wouldn't be "less marketable", but just completely unremarkable (who wants to look at nothing but seemingly flat surfaces).

      (In the case of aerial photographs, the exaggeration is simply an artifact of the spacing of the photos and the spacing of the human eyes; it's not some major plot to deceive. But the exaggeration is actually useful for people doing work in the field.)

      --
      Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
  9. Plug for Mars MOLA Viewer here by mmacdona86 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You can fly over all of Mars in realtime 3D/OpenGL with data from the Mars Orbiter MOLA experiment. These flyovers have much nicer hi-res textures, though.
    http://www.antlersoft.com/demo3d/mars/index.html/
    Runs in Linux and MS-Windows and it's open-source, as well.

  10. Re:Nice by Karthikkito · · Score: 2, Informative

    Quite a few clouds, in fact! http://images.spaceref.com/news/2004/08.11.04.oppo rtunity.jpg

  11. Lens flare by lindseyp · · Score: 2, Interesting

    And what's with the fucking lens flare? Isn't this supposed to be a demonstration of scientific interest? not Toy Story 3.

    I mean, if they wanted 'realism' they could have given the thing more motion blur, maybe had a few flecks of dust hit the camera and given it more wind shake.

    --
    j'ai découvert une démonstration vraiment admirable (de ce théorème général) que cette si