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Mars Rover Technology Used to Make Better Maps
Cal writes "An article on the O'Reilly Radar site discusses a new street mapping technology by a company in Berkeley called earthmine. They are using technology developed by the Jet Propulsion Lab for the Mars Exploration Rover missions for reconstructing three-dimensional data of the street-scape. 'The licensed software and algorithms are used to create a 3D representation of the local terrain, allowing autonomous routing of the MERs through the Martian environment. earthmine has combined this JPL technology with its unique, capture hardware and web delivery technology to deliver 3D data with unprecedented density and accuracy.'"
My car has so far lasted 6 times longer than its original mission lifespan and I am halfway to the local shop.
I should reach it by June (providing my solar panels don't get dusty).
liqbase
If it used to make better maps before then I'm sure it could do it again. Pitiful thing is probably just feeling very isolated and abandoned.
From the press release referenced in the article "The agreement with JPL and Caltech includes an exclusive and perpetual license for photogrammetric technology that allows for the creation of very dense and accurate 3D data from stereo panoramic imagery. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed, but Caltech has taken an equity position in earthmine." [emphasis added]
OK, CalTech owns part of earthmine and JPL is at CalTech. That's fine, but didn't tax dollars pay for the technology developed at JPL? IANAL, but it *used* to be that federally-funded research needed to be made available to everyone - not licensed in perpetuity to a private company. When did this change?
Never let reality temper imagination
Never let reality temper imagination
Cue asshat politicians and bureaucrats to order this service dumbed down or removed because of the potential use by terrorists.
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
Mars Rover Technology Used to Make Better Maps
Maps? Like such as the Iraq?
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
This sounds like the ideal mapping project. Everytime I need to find some place in a new environment, it is always difficult to tell some building apart. And I do believe that Google Inc. is going to make some significant investment in this technology (if not buying it out entirely).
BUT! (Yes, there is always a BUT to every good news.) Anyone think that the NSA or the Homeland Security is going to be ok with this? I mean...Google Inc. already got in trouble with the NSA and Homeland with the 3D building thing in Google Earth. I believe incorporating this kind of detail into the map (especially in area they deem 'vulnerable' targets) would only bring more questions and problems with the Feds. The NSA and/or Homeland is going to make some argument about how realistic the map look and how potential terrorist can use it to plan large scale attacks, and they would probably try to put as much restriction on this if possible (if not shutting it down entirely). Just some thoughts.
"Mars Rover Technology Used to Make Better Maps".... Does this mean it doesn't make better maps any more? //Didn't RTFA.
This is one of the best ways of appropriating your tax dollars next to guns and drugs.
Cue the rightwingers who always leap in to claim that company X needs to have a monopoly over product Y to recoup their costs for R&D which were actually paid by someone else, most likely the public.
Have a look at all the wonderful medication you financed that is being sold back to you at twice the price compared to any other civilized country because you're dumb enough to eat up every word bigCo tells you. The market is always right and is always the most efficient solution to everything.
We'll do it for you in SIX MINUTES...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
These people even look at googleearth?
Googleearth 4.2 does very accurate 3D mapping if the res is high enough. I have found nearly invisible old trails and use it's 3D powers daily. Very cool to fly down the valleys on Vancouver Island at an apparent height of say 300 meters looking for ways through to the next logging road network. I've found nearly invisible crossings through ravines and it is killer for my purposes.
I dunno how they can do much more than bring up the resolution.
JPL gets cash for these licenses and uses it to continue their mission. Because of this, you get more out of JPL for the same tax dollars.
No, I don't like it either, but that's the logic and it's very hard to dispute, since you can argue that people shouldn't be able to commercialize the results of tax-payer funded research for free.
So Caltech sells this technology to a private company which means it gets a cut of the profits. So the goverment's original funding has now helped generate a steady income source for caltech and the technology is still out there. So now the goverment's future grants can, for example, now be smaller since Caltech has a larger amount of private income. Likewise this is also an incentive for Caltech to continue producing usable technology if the grants don't decrease. After all if it had to give it away for free it has little incentive to make their work more generally applicable (they gain nothing from it).
It'd be interesting if I can import this data into ESRI 3D analyst. Combining this with other layers could make for some VERY interesting goofing off err... spatial analysis in support of core projects (or at least thats what my time sheet will say.)
Ubiquitously - A Ubiquity Developer Community
In the recent past (1- 2 decades) remote sensing satellites become capable of capturing 'stereo images' with accurate 3d measurement of features. close range photogrammetry has been there for a long time even before satellites for 3d measurements. It looks like this technology uses many close range photogrammetry lenses (covering 360 deg) to capture image, and use algorithms for geometry transformations and calibration. Hence suitable for applications using spatial measurements like public utilities. Lens distortion / calibration etc could be still problem. Remember even NASA, used to move the Mars rovers after a great deal of analysis and study. (every day they use to move few centimeters are so)
Firstly, the US isn't purely based in capitalism. Since FDR and others, it's been a mixed system as a mostly free market with government restrictions and regulations. The specific regulations in question are there so that Caltech continues with its mission of educating and furthering technological advancement without becoming a business, which could stifle both parts of that mission.
Secondly, Caltech does not need extra incentive to produce usable technology. As government grants need justification in order to be granted, the needed incentive is built into the system. Also, regardless if Caltech gets a cut of the profits, the technology will still be produced and available and Caltech will receive more grants for their contribution. Lastly, grant sizes wouldn't really shrink, they'd just be moved around in your model. Instead of going to Caltech, future grants would go elsewhere or to other departments.
Essentially, Caltech does not need to be run like a free market business to get things done because it (theoretically) already gets its bills paid by the government. There's no real need for federally funded research to be licensed to one company, everyone is/should be entitled to new technology created by the government.
The government can in theory pay less to have something developed by not also buying the results outright but simply the ability to freely use the results itself (as the university can finance the rest itself due to it's potential future worth). This is slightly akin to paying someone partially in stock instead of cash.
Let's say the government wants a shiny new fighter jet. It can on one hand pay 100% of the R&A costs and production costs at $100 billion total for the full run then release the (non-classified) results to the public. It can on the other hand pay $50 billion but let the company own the resulting technology which it then incorporates into it's civilian planes. I'm sure you'd be bitching about the government wasting money if it went with the first option.
So you want everyone's taxes to increase to counteract this loss in money from non-government sources?
I actually read Jet Repulsion Labs** serveral times over, to bad i was wrong.
** JRL / Jet Repulsion Labs - from Pinky & the Brain!
In other news, i'm shocked that Google doesn't know about JRL.
Guess they've already got the world domination kit.
Hivemind harvest in progress..
Best of all about this is that it demonstrates once again that UNmanned spaceflight has just as many technology spin-offs as the manned variety... and if you get 5$% of the results for 1% of the outlay and almost infinitely less risk to human life, there's just no point sending humans.
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
What do you mean not those kind of maps??
kurzweil_freak
5th Kyu Genbukan Ninpo/KJJR student
Be the darkness that allows the light to shine.
Your posit is that our governmental expenses would go up. I say the exact opposite would happen, if the results were "open sourced", a variety of different people and businesses could take advantage of the new knowledge, expanding jobs and opportunities many fold over just the one company who would have exclusive "license" to use this new knowledge for x-years. I don't care how big your company is, it isn't as large as "everyone". "Everyone" will always have more points of view and a larger collective intelligence to tap into. And all these companies and people would pay taxes based on an increase of wealth production. Governmental expenses could theoretically go *down*, or they could take the new additional monies created, at the same exact previous percentile parity, and fund more research than what they could previously, the compounding effect.
Closed source is a valid model, but open source allows for faster development and more "wealth production", even if it is initially just more IP. Heck, even the heart of capitalism agrees now, look at the next article, NYSE goes open source. It works with code, it can work with a variety of other types of new research as well. A group of Nobel Laureates just called for more international collaboration with scientific advances, because they think it would work better,a free exchange of results, rather than stricter and more closed-off research. Other smart guys are calling for dropping the economic barriers to expensive peer reviewed articles. I would agree there as well.
Me, I am gonna trust the smart guys on this one. When you have both the planet's leading and honored professional smart guys AND the planet's leading professional and quite well compensated shrewd big money guys actually agreeing on something, a simple basic premise...well..you wanna bet against the house? The uni can make more by sharing (long run), because as you and others all give out-share- "you" the uni in this case- get to take back as well, because everyone's efforts can be "force multiplied", and that multiplied force down the road can and will turn into money, along with other things, these research results we all want to see.
How long until they map out paper delivery routes? I would't mind the local paper delivered by robot. And maybe even pizza delivery, it will have to cope with roving packs of dogs and teenage hackers. Can we program the GPS in cars to recognize dirt roads, dead ends, and of course too narrow streets?
Now, Miss South Carolina will be able to find Olympus Mons and Valles Marineris.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
I sent a link to all the idiots that I know who cry that money spent on NASA is wasted. Here is a clear example of current space technology trickling down to benefit the masses. Governments contracts be damned.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
My 3D has more density than your 3D.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
I don't care how big your company is, it isn't as large as "everyone". "Everyone" will always have more points of view and a larger collective intelligence to tap into."
We have the "appeal to the wisdom of crowds" fallacy. It's called Youtube.
"I say the exact opposite would happen, if the results were "open sourced", a variety of different people and businesses could take advantage of the new knowledge, expanding jobs and opportunities many fold over just the one company who would have exclusive "license" to use this new knowledge for x-years."
Like most "pie in the sky" posts. The issue of risk is never addressed.
Any time we discuss UAV-based monitoring, someone would always bring up Big Brother. Any time there is a talk about detailed databases (government or corporate), there will is talk of totalitarianism.
But collecting of very precise maps of every square meter of the ground (including all the stuff lying on it at the time of survey) does not seem to offend anyone...
I don't really agree with the doom-sayers personally, just pointing out an inconsistency here.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
... you'll still never be able to re-fold them properly to put them in the glove box.
Have gnu, will travel.
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You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
PTStereo does just that. It is part of panotools, but unfortunately the author has not released its source. (PTStereo was only one of a few components of Panotools that is only available in binary form).
I've used autopano-sift (with Hugin as a front end) to automatically create and match the features points, and PTPicker's Delaunay triangulation to make the triangles. PTStereo then outputs a VRML file that can be read in to Blender (or any number of VRML reading programs) using this VRML importer.I now have my 3D triangle mesh textured model in the modeling program. You can do whatever you want with it from there, such as measuring its volume, rigging it to be animated as a CGI element in a movie, analysing the terrain of a mountain to find the best hiking route to a summit, having it be an obstacle for Blender's fluid simulator. There's no limit.
This issue I have with Google Earth, Photosynth and Earthmine, is that you are limited to their datasets, and they tend to only make 3D models of cities and buildings, and low resolution images (compared with photographs) of mountains taken from above only. Sketchup is a step in the right direction, but PTStereo allows you to do Image Based Modeling from your own images.... and it's free!
"Follow me" the wise man said, but he walked behind.