Okay. that wasn't so difficult.

I took this image that Phil steered me to, marked by eye the graticles, and then cut the white-outlined postage stamp (didn't bother to follow the goofy longitude line) and pasted it into the constant-scale natural boundary map.
Then it took some heavy fiddling to warp and match it with the rest of the map; not perfect, but it'll do until we get more accurate base material to work with. I don't have Phil's touch on the Photoshop's LEVELS adjustment, so I may have it too washed out; until someone gets it put together we won't know how it matches at the map boundary.
Also gonna be a learning experience to see how the repaired right "ear" goes together; fingers are crossed.
I used the clone stamp the clean up the postage stamping (at the other end of the map); didn't seem worth it to do anything fussier until we see how the mosaic matches up with itself when the thing is put together.
I've posted a larger image of the map over at my website.

"I'll see what I can find tomorrow."
Phil,
[EDIT, after Phil's last post] Oh. Nevermind. Maybe something will turn up in Houston.

Can you produce the squares in something approximating the "high contrast" look of the cylindrical map?
Can you produce the squares both with and without graticle lines? That way I can get a nice clean cut from the "without" square, and still use the "with" square to lock in the registration.

And, if you've time for another request, can you use the Gaskell shape model to check my latitudes on Itokawa's chin? See the pic; the magenta lines are my guesses for the 23.333 and 26.667 latitudes. It's pretty tricky, because of the chin's extreme elongation, to locate where these latitudes emerge at the surface. Can you plot these for the areas I show?

Some of my concern here (see the constant-scale natural boundary map) may be from pixel resolution. I had to stretch (enlarge) these squares by a factor of 5 from the cylindrical map. (At the poles, of course, the cylindrical map was way more pixels than I needed.) For most of the rest of the asteroid, the cylindrical map held about as many pixels as the corresponding area on the CSNB map.
But under the chin, especially, higher resolution would make for a crisper image than what we've got so far.

I've got to get hold of software that'll let me open and work with these digital shape models. Any suggestions?

"No - just a cylindrical projection with a twist!"

Tee hee.
Steveliva, I'm afraid you've already gotten your wish -- it's these lumpy asteroids that are giving the standard cylindrical projections fits. Just look at the discombobulation that Itokawa's overhanging "cheekbone" causes.

Oh. Well, so there ya go.
Although I don't think the constant-scale natural boundary method discovered it so much as it failed to correct it. If anything can be said for the CSNB method in regard to this sort of problem, I venture to say, is that CSNB -- because it works inward from the edge, capturing true shapes -- is not susceptible to the problem.

And nevertheless, I still need unscrambled info to fit into these three graticles, shown in orange on this page from the Icarus Itokawa article.
Can you go into the Gaskell shape model and spin it around until you get a nice, straight-on-as-you-can pic of each "square"? That'll be better than what I've got so far.

Well, so much for one more day. The mosaic has a glitch!

One of the small pleasures of pasting in the postage-stamp-sized pieces of the mosaic is watching the squirrely parts unscramble. This is fairly straightforward at the poles, and full of surprises at an asteroid's extreme contours. These have all resolved themselves with the notable exception of the "sea otter's" right neck, the orange circle. How I have it -- and i broke it down into 3.3 degree graticles -- can't be how it ought to look, yet I can't seem to find my mistake(s).

The problem might be in my hand-drawn graticles on the model, but I don't see how I'm far enough off to correct the squirreling. Suggestions welcome.

I've also got a mundane glitch at the orange arrow -- one of the postage-stamps pooched out the back of the active layer when I wasn't looking. Then, before I caught the goof, I merged the layer with the main mosaic. It's in one of the extreme contour areas, so I may have to rebuild the whole 10x10 degree "square."

This thing is gonna be wonderful when I can get a true-color mosaic . . . anybody out there working on that?

Phil,
I'll have to expand the mosaic. Just off-panorama to the right is a mid-century dentist's chair for clients to sit while I draw their house plans, a reminder for them that the process of designing a home is not so much like shopping on Fifth Avenue as it is like getting a root canal.

And here is a shot of the work lab where this all happens. Yes, that's a Japanese-made Mutoh magtop cover on the vertical drafting board. I'll post the map with the full mosaic tomorrow. Then, the race begins to put it together!

Okay, ran out of file space on that post. Here are the Tracing and the Ear Failure images.
The tracing is taken full-size on acetate directly off the plastic model. The folded map is reduced half size.

Not that I mean to compare Itokawa to a sausage, just to show you behind the scenes of making the map, along with the map itself, here, rather than continue to clog up the Hayabusa Return to Earth thread.
Here is the map itself, so far along as the pasting in of the mosaic has gone.
And here is are two shots of the folded up map, compared with the computer-made model. Note the arrow to one of the "ears." The first try of the map failed to capture the ear, so I replotted the boundary, as seen in the Tracing image.
All photos credit: Sara Adkins Studio

Murphy's Law.
When I tried to crank up the contrast on the gridded map, it affected the grid lines themselves, casting ghost-lines into the imagery proper. So I used Phil's ungridded, high-contrast map and added the graticles as a separate layer. Results are much cleaner. By the way, Phil, thanks for using a divisible-by-360 pixel size, so easy to add the lines onto it.
Here's how things look so far.

No, I didn't realize that was just a Photoshop tweak. I thought you were fiddling with the 3-D file; you know, adding shades and shadows or something along those lines. I'll give it a whirl, but in case I don't get the hang of contrast adjustment, please go ahead and post the gridded, high-contrast version.
EDIT: Okay, I figured out what to do. For all you Photoshop novices out there, Phil, I think, actually did a "levels" adjustment. When I tried just a "brightness/contrast" adjustment, I lost the lost and bottom ends (the brightest whites and the darkest darks) of the pixel spread. This is easy to keep in a levels adjustment. (I've got the adjusted image on an off-line machine so can't easily post my results here, but give a me a day or so (to cut and paste) and I'll post the full constant-scale natural boundary map.
Phil, thanks for the hand-holding session.

Philip,
One problem with the new, high-contrast map -- could you remake it and include 10 degree graticles, like your low-contrast map? Otherwise I have to rough them in with Photoshop, which is nowhere near as accurate as you can do.
Here's how the constant-scale natural boundary map looks at the moment. (The one pasted square is off the low-contrast map.)

So Phil, I've got the first layout nearly complete.
how is that high contrast adjustment coming along?
Chuck

Absolutely by all means yes please most grateful.

Quote removed - Mod

Yeah, I was grasping at straws, hoping it'd be just a few mouse clicks (like we architects now do with our CAD programs) to at least pop a few shadows on to bring out the form. Sounds like that's a stretch. Oh well. At least with constant-scale natural boundary maps the shape itself has content, and we'll all have to be content with that for a while . . .

Phil, can you add any shading and shadows onto this map? It's a bit washed out to make much sense when I paste it into the constant scale-natural boundary map.

What with those rocks and that narrow neck, it is proving to be a complex little map.
Here are some images of the model I'm working with, as I've got it marked up with graticules, ridges & valleys, followed by a pic of the nearly-empty drawing board with the beginnings of the map.

well, JohnVV, you do so at the sacrifice of tactile and kinesthetic sensory experience (sense of touch and motion).

Remember, no one but you is making you choose between the two.

I admit that the picture inside the magic box (computer monitor) is way more realistic than the facsimile you can make with this particular constant-scale natural boundary paper cut out, but I fear you are seduced by the cheap thrill, the easy accessibility to apparent reality that our sense of sight sets us up for by its overwhelming dominance of the other senses. A blindered focus of attention on the sense of sight sets you up to be the unwitting patsy at the poker table of discovery. You are going to overlook crucial things, patterns or relationships. Prone to overlook, at least. You may be the exception.

But as a scientist (or for that matter a poet, but don't let me get onto a tangent), over the long term, you'll be better served by cultivating the sensitivity of all your senses. Use the wonderfully fascinating, richly detailed visual illusion inside the computer monitor, but also put one of these CSNB-models together; get your hands involved in a meaningful way.

That's the argument for the folded form. Now the argument for world maps:
That digital image (or my crude folded model for that matter), however enchanting it may look, doesn't let you see the whole surface at once. And yet for many puzzles well worth solving -- global patterns in the lineaments on Eros, for instance; drainage and other types of gravity flow (as lava) on Mars for another -- world maps are vital. They let you analyze the entire surface comprehensively. Now it so happens that in the our era of extensive planetary exploration and awareness, and especially so in the case of lumpy asteroids, the mapping methods bequeathed to us by history and convention are not such useful tools as we might wish for revealing large scale patterns. The general trend has been to rely less and less on world maps and more and more on our fancy new digital images. Or, to put it accurately, to rely on our intuition and (short-term) memory to synthesize, to spot large scale patterns subjectively.
Nothing wrong with that; all benefit by maximizing our facilities in Renaissance-era skills. Great strides were (and are) made by accessing our representational tool kit. But the representational manner of studying things, the unique viewpoint, our everyday method of seeing, is an illusion. By relying on representation, we are prey for the magician, the mistaken and the misguided.

Whence we are well served by the facts of analysis, the objective clarities of a full unveiling, the comprehensiveness of world maps. That's why I continue to advocate Visit My Website for constant-scale natural boundary world maps, either inside the monitor or on your tabletop.

If I use a more extensive boundary set for a CSNB map, the folded form will be much closer to the real thing. And if, as I've done with the compact CSNB maps (above), I use a restricted boundary set, I generate a world map showing the entire surface within the context of -- organized by -- my boundary set. The compact maps above use the uppermost major ridges or the lowermost major valleys; the shape of the maps signify the particular geomorphology of each.

not to say that that Phobos image of yours is not a lovely thing.

Tayfun,
Please keep me in your fabrication schedule though. The JAXA model is impressive in size -- the equal of one of your models, but it does not have latitude and longitude scorings on it. It will serve, because I can mark them by eye (using the Icarus paper's images), but a higher level of inaccuracy is inevitable. So whenever Phil gets around to the photomosaic, let's revisit a fabrication by you.
Stay tuned.

Well, this map will work just fine for the first effort.
And i suppose there is always the chance that some one at JAXA will put one together.

I was wondering how Phil was progressing with the Itokawa map. Glad to see you've got it finished.
JAXA just sent me a plastic model of Itokawa (I'll post a pic as soon as I corral a digital photographer) that I'll use to make a constant-scale natural boundary map of the asteroid.
If anyone is interested, I'll also post pics of the map-making process -- YO, FORUM ADMINISTRATOR! Any chance of getting these last three posts snipped out of this thread and placed in a new topic, with title of, say, "Mapping Itokawa"?

Can't wait for the photomosaic map. Any predictions, Phil, on availability?

So is "folding" the more accurate name, in my third Google-view above, for the "striations" in Eastern Tennessee, the "Hatfield and McCoy" territory running from Chattanooga to Knoxville?
And does the concentric bend they make around my "crater" demonstrate support for the crater idea?
Here's a wider view, Chattanooga in the foreground to Knoxville in the distance (state boundaries in white), that shows the relationship I'm asking about.

That's the same orange circle in my other Google-views; it probably is not the precise same circle in my stretched-plastic views.
Here is a view from Sudbury Structure (did I pick the correct one?) to Copperhill (again with my orange circle).


Oh, and by the way, Juramike, MasterCard really oughta produce the promo you suggest.

Could "ground truth" include the concentric striations in the landscape to the west (over the mountain) of the possible crater?

and one more:

okay. I finally figured out how to control sun and exaggerate height in Google Earth.
Now learning to controlling their polygon tool is a bit tougher for me, but here are some "crater" images, morning sun, vertical scale times 3:

Okay. I'm a little slow to pick upon things, but what I've done -- in the case of the elongate craters -- is make an error of the cartographer (my subjective goof); I have NOT displayed an error of the cartography (an objective inability of the projection system [constant-scale natural boundaries] to accurately represent shape). I don't doubt this is also true for "enforced lineations," but I'm not sure exactly where and to what SickNick refers.

My error of cartography was in marking off the graticles filling in the outline: I failed to reduce them in scale fast enough as they moved inward from the map's constant-scale edge. Notice how crater elongation is parallel (roughly parallel) to map edge. If I'd shrunk the most inward part of the map more, this would have produced more circular (true shape) craters. Since I'm working these by longhand, old-fashioned geometry, and these objects are irregular, it becomes deucedly complicated to keep up with accurate scale in any map's middle portions. When (assuming when) this system is computerized, this error bar will tank. The only sectors of the map where conformality fails is in regions near hinge points, the points where you begin to fold adjoining lobes.

When SickNick says "I would not expect these to fold-up to a good representation of the original due to this distortion" he misses the point. These do not fold up to good representations of the original because the boundary (the map edge), relative to the object, is short. What happens inside the outline is irrelevant to the folded shape. I could have swirled the graticles beyond recognition, or -- far better! -- I could have sized them accurately to eliminate elongate craters (everywhere except very near a hinge point), but the folded object made by the map would be the same in either case.

And when SickNick says "Ultimately, you will exceed the limit of what is possible with 2D paper, in trying to fit the 3D surface...", I'm not sure that is true. A fine use of csnb maps made with short boundaries is that the resultant map is a compact shape. That is, a shape which is a desirable feature in a map. So it is highly useable as a map, especially because -- even in these imperfect examples -- shape distortion and size distortion are much, much less than that available with conventional projections. And when "trying to fit the 3D surface..." the trick is to employ a boundary set which is both well-branched and wide-spread on the object. And since these are irregular objects, and the branches (the line of interruption, where the orange unpeels) may grow as far as we like, it may be possible to make the sheet of paper exactly fit the object. At least in theory. Or so I'm told, by people whose job it is to know these things.

All I really do is unpeel oranges.