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James Cameron To Develop 3-D Camera For Mars Rover
Hugh Pickens writes "Computerworld reports that movie director James Cameron, of Avatar and Titanic fame, is working with Malin Space Science Systems Inc. to build an updated 3-D camera that will be installed on the Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity if completed in time, to be the machine's 'science-imaging workhorse,' says Michael Malin, who is working on the camera team. Malin delivered two cameras to be installed on the rover's main mast; however NASA has provided Malin with funding to work with Cameron to build alternatives to these two cameras. 'The fixed focal length [cameras] we just delivered will do almost all of the science we originally proposed. But they cannot provide a wide field of view with comparable eye stereo,' he says. 'With the zoom [cameras], we'll be able to take cinematic video sequences in 3-D on the surface of Mars.'"
What's the narrative you're using?
I'm taking bets on how long it takes NASA to discover blue aliens on Mars.
"The knee is the elbow of the leg." -- My wife
But, if you see another Rover. Wake me up before I fall in love with it.
I don't see why James Cameron's involvement is necessary. Stereoscopic imaging is pretty simple technology, and it's not like James Cameron invented it. What's so hard about turning a fixed-focal-length stereo camera into one that has zoom lenses? And why would you employ a film director, rather than an optical engineer to do it?
... and then they built the supercollider.
James Cameron -> The Terminator -> Arnold Swarchenegger -> Total Recall -> Get Your Ass to Mars!!!
Might help the engineers to figure out where the ground is before they dump a probe into Mars at high velocity :-)
Cameron does not have the technical chops to design such a camera. He's promoting he's view of space exploration to NASA and wanting them to use gear he's financially backed.
Which now we must ask, why is a shlock film maker being allowed input into critical scientific exploration? Please NASA get off the fanboi wagon.
Malin used to work at Pixar. He's the absolute right person to do this. He doesn't really need Cameron, just give him the assignment.
What bothers me about this, though, is that this science project has to pander to the public with eye-candy. Because we can't sell them on the science. I think this says something about our national lack of education, and something about the public having become a massively parallel knee-jerk driven by the lies fed to them daily on Fox TV and the trash TV that is more important to them than mankind's future.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Excellent! NASA can gets new corporate sponsors as Marlboro redefines itself as the 'Red cigarette on the Red Planet' and a generation of School Kids can be charmed by Joe Camel's new adventures on mars. http://scifi.about.com/b/2010/01/04/avatar-is-smoking-in-more-ways-than-one.htm
This will satisfy the burning need for three dimensional movies of stationary martian rocks.
Who else is going to be able to fake the Mars landing?
'Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.' - Mao Tse-tung
...and make sure that they steal it rather than pay for it. That way, it will work with their hardware.
The Internet has given stupid people the resources of intelligent people.
I strongly suspect that when they say "James Cameron" they mean "a team of optics engineers who worked on Avatar which Cameron nominally leads."
Raise your hand.. oh no hands?
WTF? I'm not even bothering to RTFA it sounds like absolute BS tripe.
Several people got modded up for questioning why Cameron was "hired" or "designing" the rig. He's not been hired and no one said he's designing anything. He's promoting the idea with NASA to help get people more excited about space. The Mars rover shots did more to get people excited about space than anything since the Moon landing. He's also going to be advising the team but that's legitimate given how much experience he has with 3D camera rigs, it goes back to Terminator 3D, I worked on it and he does know the subject. He also knows the best people in the field for helping them design the rig and software so he can make contacts for them. It's a growing field but 10 years ago the experts were on a very short list. I worked on several 3D productions and you always used to see a lot of the same faces. He's offering free help and he's better informed than most people here seem to give him credit for. Avatar has the best 3D ever and his pushing to make it the best was the reason why. Focusing strictly on hard science is a great way to drive people away. Also 3D images have technical value. Ever try to drive a car with one eye closed? In the future when rovers travel faster and further stereo vision systems will become more important. Now is a good time to develop the technology. Good on Jim for diving in. NASA needs all the help it can get if they are to have any hope of hanging onto their budget as money tightens up.
If I was NASA, I would hire James Cameron. The technology behind making 3D movies is simple, but the technology behind making 3D movies that actually look decent is not. Most optical engineers don't have experience working around the multi-million dollar equipment that makes a movie like Avatar so clear and easy to watch. On the other hand, James Cameron (or James Cameron's team) produced a two and a half hour movie using that same technology. Avatar was practically filmed using technology that Cameron either invented or perfected, depending on which edit of Wikipedia you choose to believe. If you're looking for the team that has the most hands on experience doing 3D movie work, then his team is it.
The negative comments on Slashdot are really getting depressing to read. From Cameron's biography at IMDB:
James Cameron was born in Kapuskasing, Ontario, Canada, on August 16, 1954. He moved to the USA in 1971. The son of an engineer, he majored in physics at California State University.
So yeah, I think he can do trigonometry. He might actually be smarter than you. Give the guy a break.
planet texture maps and more
Was a time when it was NASA providing the tech to the film director, like when they traded a high tech lens capable of shooting in very low light to Stanley Kubrick in exchange for him helping fake the moon landing.
Dark Side of the Moon
Loose lips lose spit.
NASA: Awarding jobs to the highest bidder.
So this is Obama's new plan for space..
The HR wide angle pic's we get now from mars are amazing, making them smaller but in 3d isn't going to make them more interesting. Cameron has dunk the 3d koolaid. 3d is just 2 off set cameras, it isn't going to provide better science. While we are promoting the arts 54.6 million km away, why not add some blue night lens filters, and maybe on set lens flares
Advanced scientific concepts has 3d cameras.
http://www.advancedscientificconcepts.com/
Read the press release...NASA is mentioned.
James Cameron is the natural choice.
I heard he grinds the lenses himself. By hand. He also wrote an optimized implementation of MLT over dinner one night. In perl.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Nasa and the DoD's budgets would be flipped....
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I once had the privilege of briefly working with him while he was evaluating servers for 3D projection for theatrical presentations. It was for his film "Ghosts of the Abyss" which ends with a hypothetical mission to the under-ice global ocean of Europa. There the crew meets some intelligent aliens (that look a little like the ones in the movie "Abyss").
While his interest in that subject is well known, less well known is the fact he commissioned a set of renderings for a Manned Mission to Mars. Not only did he pay for this but he spent a considerable amount of time (he says "years") tracking down the specialists at NASA he needed to accurately design this mission. (From what I remember it was a little like Zubrin's proposal with in-situ propellant manufacture with a prior unmanned lander).
http://www.astrobio.net/interview/813/james-camerons-mars-reference-design
I just wanted to mention that not only does he have the technical skills (or access to them) to pull this off, he clearly has the motivation to do so as well. (On another note, I'm particularly intrigued that the sequel or pre-quel to "AVATAR" that he's rumored to be making will be set in Pandora's ocean. He obviously has an abiding interest in that as well). Anyway, more power to him!
What's so special about Cameron's 3D setups? Didn't we have essentially the same thing decades ago by taping 2 cameras together for 3D?
I hope he can help and that any stupid mistakes are caught. Almost EVERYTHING is different in space than on Earth. Weight is always the enemy, but so is durability. Simple things that we take for granted in most of our designs simply don't apply with space-rated equipment. There is only 1 chance for it to work, ofter 5 yrs after it last moved. And please tell them to double check the english to metric unit conversions.
There have always been things about Cameron movies that didn't sit well with me as an engineer. Important things are always forgotten or ignored that simply cannot be like they are shown in his movies .... except in Titanic. I still can't believe people bothered to watch that movie. We all knew how it ended before we sad down! I've never been able to sit through the entire movie. Simply too boring.
There's nothing wrong with trying to make science look good. Great pictures/movies inspire people; I'd rather they be inspired by Hubble shots or Mars rover films than by Australian Roman torture snuff movies.
What we get back from current probes is surprisingly bland. I think it would go a long way towards making Mars real in the mind of people to have high-def moving pictures beamed back. Currently while we have very stunning photos, it's all very static. We have no feel of what the materials are like. This would make a major difference.
Not to mention that this has already been done on Mars. The SSI "Surface Stereoscopic Imager" was used by the Phoenix Mars Scout lander in 2008.
100 years later there will be conspiracy 'bout Americans on Mars, just like with the Moon now, if Cameron is to deal with NASA by any means.
What is the bandwidth like anyways and will this fit in it?
You sit around on slashdot all day and night long instead of earning a collegiate degree.
Look, if you are going to fake a landing on Mars, who would you want to be making the movie of it for you?
Perhaps he is using some of the 3d images for the long-delayed Battle Angle Alita / Gunnm film? The background story about the Cyborg girl Alita revolves her life on Mars.
Jim Cameron optioned Kim Stanley Robinson's trilogy "RED MARS", "BLUE MARS", and "GREEN MARS" many years ago. Everyone kind of thought Jim might have given the project up. This probably means it is now full-on after the Pandora sequels.
Placing better 3D cameras on Rover "Curiosity" provides Jim's production company with early access to footage that can be better matched to in-studio green screen sets, especially because the height of the deployed rover camera mast is approximately the average height of a human.
Now there is an interesting problem here: If Jim's company wins exclusive first-use access to the new NASA 3D Mars Rover footage for commercial exploitation in a motion picture, the NASA Rover budget would look to the EU and the FIAPF to be an unfair government subsidy trade advantage towards the production of a US motion picture, and they may then issue trade sanctions to protect the EU movie production business from US productions.
To avoid this, Jim might consider incorporating the trilogy's production company on MARS, so that trade sanctions would need to be legally filed at the office to be located at Utopia Planitia, or wherever "Curiousity" first lands on Mars. The other obvious advantage of this legal move is in preventing unwarranted tax levies and tariffs on box-office revenues reported to Mars, since there are no existing interplanetary trade laws, yet.
DarkStarZumaBeachSurfinApocalypseWow
That's why it's cool to be James Cameron! After making the "Terminator" movies, something resembling that same killer robot got to take over and destroy California. After making "Titanic", he just automatically gets to climb abort the submarine from "The Abyss" and travel down to the real Titanic.
So of course Cameron is going into space. Now it's just his cool 3D camera, maybe, but if he makes a sequel to "Avatar", he automatically gets to really go into space.
-Dave Haynie