[meteorite-list] Billion-Pixel View of Mars Comes From Curiosity Rover

From: Ted Bunch <tbear1_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2013 12:27:41 -0700
Message-ID: <51C357AD.5000409_at_cableone.net>

Beer can tab.
Ted

On 6/20/13 8:40 AM, Jodie Reynolds wrote:
> Hello Jeff,
>
> Registration artifact.
>
> When one goes about putting these together, one would generally work
> in at least a 24bit if not a 32bit space with a transparent
> background.
>
> I sick a whole bunch of processing power on the problem with a neural
> network looking for features that match-up. Once those millions of
> points are selected (through many hours of training and then
> automated iteration), my image processing software then has to warp,
> bend, fold, spindle, and mutilate the individual frames, stitching
> them together into an image that looks attractive on a flat 2D screen.
>
> When that's done, it needs to then have the bit depth reduced for
> end user consumption. That involves getting rid of the transparent
> background and filling that space "underneath" with some color.
>
> I have a few tricks that NASA/JPL folks may not employ. One of them
> is filling the background with pure Red (255,0,0), then another with
> pure Green (0,0,255), then another with pure Blue (0,255,0). Those
> then go through another pre-processing step of overlaying those and
> checking for each color pure color. Any area that flags for two of
> the three is suspect. Small areas that don't precisely
> line-up like that get flagged for manual revision. That step allows
> me to pull them into an image editor and quickly pixel-hack them
> together in a convincing way (although not scientifically valuable).
>
> I suspect they skip that step entirely and just fill the background
> with white and post it.
>
> Even with the current state-of-the-art, any time you have motion you
> have registration issues that can't be gracefully resolved. Mine
> show those artifacts around the rover itself, especially in the
> shadows.
>
> Creating panoramas from so many frames of a sphere and then
> unwrapping the sphere into 2D isn't an exact science. Plenty of room
> for discovery there.
>
> --- Jodie
>
>
> Thursday, June 20, 2013, 2:15:39 AM, you wrote:
>
>> Anyone else see this? It's something white sitting between two rocks around
>> mid-pic.
>
>> https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152932582005103&set=a.498242950102
>> .395373.156382705102
>
>> Cheers,
>
>> Jeff
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com
>> [mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] On Behalf Of Ron Baalke
>> Sent: Thursday, 20 June 2013 4:40 AM
>> To: Meteorite Mailing List
>> Subject: [meteorite-list] Billion-Pixel View of Mars Comes From Curiosity
>> Rover
>
>
>> http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-205
>
>> Billion-Pixel View of Mars Comes From Curiosity Rover
>> Jet Propulsion Laboratory
>> June 19, 2013
>
>> PASADENA, Calif. -- A billion-pixel view from the surface of Mars, from
>> NASA's Mars rover Curiosity, offers armchair explorers a way to examine
>> one part of the Red Planet in great detail.
>
>> The first NASA-produced view from the surface of Mars larger than one
>> billion pixels stitches together nearly 900 exposures taken by cameras
>> onboard Curiosity and shows details of the landscape along the rover's
>> route.
>
>> The 1.3-billion-pixel image is available for perusal with pan and zoom
>> tools at: http://mars.nasa.gov/bp1/ .
>
>> The full-circle scene surrounds the site where Curiosity collected its
>> first scoops of dusty sand at a windblown patch called "Rocknest," and
>> extends to Mount Sharp on the horizon.
>
>> "It gives a sense of place and really shows off the cameras'
>> capabilities," said Bob Deen of the Multi-Mission Image Processing
>> Laboratory at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "You
>> can see the context and also zoom in to see very fine details."
>
>> Deen assembled the product using 850 frames from the telephoto camera of
>> Curiosity's Mast Camera instrument, supplemented with 21 frames from the
>> Mastcam's wider-angle camera and 25 black-and-white frames -- mostly of
>> the rover itself -- from the Navigation Camera. The images were taken on
>> several different Mars days between Oct. 5 and Nov. 16, 2012. Raw
>> single-frame images received from Curiosity are promptly posted on a
>> public website at: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/raw/ . Mars
>> fans worldwide have used those images to assemble mosaic views,
>> including at least one gigapixel scene.
>
>> The new mosaic from NASA shows illumination effects from variations in
>> the time of day for pieces of the mosaic. It also shows variations in
>> the clarity of the atmosphere due to variable dustiness during the month
>> while the images were acquired.
>
>> NASA's Mars Science Laboratory project is using Curiosity and the
>> rover's 10 science instruments to investigate the environmental history
>> within Gale Crater, a location where the project has found that
>> conditions were long ago favorable for microbial life.
>
>> Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, built and operates Curiosity's
>> Mastcam. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in
>> Pasadena, manages the project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in
>> Washington and built the Navigation Camera and the rover.
>
>> More information about the mission is online at: http://www.nasa.gov/msl
>> and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/ .
>
>> You can follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at:
>> http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity and
>> http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity .
>
>> For more information about the Multi-Mission Image Processing
>> Laboratory, see: http://www-mipl.jpl.nasa.gov/mipex.html .
>
>> Guy Webster 818-354-6278
>> Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
>> guy.webster at jpl.nasa.gov
>
>> 2013-205
>
>> ______________________________________________
>
>> Visit the Archives at http://www.meteorite-list-archives.com
>> Meteorite-list mailing list
>> Meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
>> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
>
>
>> ______________________________________________
>
>> Visit the Archives at http://www.meteorite-list-archives.com
>> Meteorite-list mailing list
>> Meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
>> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
>
>
>
Received on Thu 20 Jun 2013 03:27:41 PM PDT