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.'"

Comments

Exclusive license for federally-funded research?

[bn0p]

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