Thanks climber. I made the same mistake... "La Rogue Gageac" is unmistakably mentioned 4 times in Mission Updates for sols 3010-3012. Searching for it in Google Maps takes us to La Roque Gageac described as "a commune in the Dordogne department in Nouvelle-Aquitaine, southwestern France". Hélas! Il me faudra verifier les noms plus souvent!
Fernando

Update to sol 3015.
Fernando
 The_Martian_Way_MSL_Curiosity_Sol_3015_2021JAN29.kmz ( 822.31K ) Number of downloads: 157

Update to sol 2972. Curiosity is under 100m of crossing into a new quadrant.
Fernando
 The_Martian_Way_MSL_Curiosity_Sol_2972_2020DEC19.kmz ( 814.12K ) Number of downloads: 225

Chang'e-5 is now returning to Earth.

Source: https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-12-13/Chang...VY5i/index.html
EDIT:First mid-course correction:
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-12-14/Chang...Mjzq/index.html

Update to sol 2967.
Fernando
 The_Martian_Way_MSL_Curiosity_Sol_2967_2020DEC12.kmz ( 813.31K ) Number of downloads: 196

Chang'e-5 has raised its lunar orbit on 1:54 UTC 12/12/2020 in preparation for an Earth-transfer trajectory:
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-12-12/Chang...wMlG/index.html
ESA has said they will support the return on December 15 but the news above mentions a 4,5 days transfer time.
Fernando

Update to sol 2959 includes the data from the PDS Release 25:

Data taken includes:
- Path data for sols 0-2924 (the full path has been reviewed and updated)
- Analyst's Notebook data for sols 1-2837

Fernando

 The_Martian_Way_MSL_Curiosity_Sol_2959_2020DEC06.kmz ( 811.35K ) Number of downloads: 262

Mars Science Laboratory Release 25
The NASA Planetary Data System announces Release 25 of data from the Mars Science Laboratory (Curiosity) mission. This release contains raw and calibrated
data products covering the time period from March 25 through July 30, 2020 (sols
2714-2837). The data are archived at various PDS nodes.

APXS (Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer) at the Geosciences Node
ChemCam at the Geosciences Node
CheMin at the Geosciences Node
DAN at the Geosciences Node
Engineering Cameras at the Cartography and Imaging Sciences Node
MAHLI (Mars Hand Lens Imager) at the Cartography and Imaging Sciences Node
MARDI (Mars Descent Imager) at the Cartography and Imaging Sciences Node
Mastcam at the Cartography and Imaging Sciences Node
PLACES Database at the Cartography and Imaging Sciences Node
RAD (Radiation Assessment Detector) at the PPI Node
REMS (Rover Environmental Monitoring Station) at the Atmospheres Node
SAM (Sample Analysis at Mars) at the Geosciences Node
SPICE at the NAIF Node

The data may be accessed from
https://pds-geosciences.wustl.edu/missions/msl/.

or for a dataset-oriented perspective:
https://pds.nasa.gov/datasearch/subscriptio...-20210802.shtml

The next MSL release is scheduled for March 16, 2021.

The PDS Team

Mailto: pds_operator@jpl.nasa.gov
Phone: (818) 393-7165

Looking at the landing sites of the Chang'e missions it struck me they're all in an area close to the center of a triangle defined by three small craters...

I know there are maaany craters on the Moon but ... could this be a characteristic of the landing algorithm?
Fernando

From CNSA http://www.cnsa.gov.cn/n6758823/n6758838/c...24/content.html using Google translation:

At 20:23 on November 29, Beijing time, [Ed. 12:23 UTC] the Chang'e-5 probe "brakes" again at the near-moon point, changing from an elliptical orbit around the moon to a near-circular orbit around the moon.
　
Later, the Chang'e-5 probe will choose an opportunity to separate the lander and ascender combination from the orbiter and returner combination. The lander and ascender combination will carry out a soft landing on the lunar front, and work such as automatic lunar surface sampling will be carried out as planned.

Fernando

Update to sol 2951.
Fernando

 The_Martian_Way_MSL_Curiosity_Sol_2951_2020NOV28.kmz ( 811.02K ) Number of downloads: 253

Chang'e-5 has just successfully achieved an elliptic lunar orbit with a 17 minute burn which started at 12:58 UTC this Saturday.
Fernando

Source: https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-11-28/China...NEha/index.html

Update to sol 2947.
Fernando
 The_Martian_Way_MSL_Curiosity_Sol_2947_2020NOV20.kmz ( 809.96K ) Number of downloads: 190

ESA is collaborating with China on the Chang'e-5 mission, see this article ESA tracks Chang'e-5 Moon mission
Most interestingly two dates are given: November 23 for the outbound flight and "around 15 December" for the return to Earth.
Fernando

Check out the much improved "Where is Curiosity" page:
https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/mission/where-is-the-rover/


Fernando

Update to sol 2940.
Fernando

 The_Martian_Way_MSL_Curiosity_Sol_2940_2020NOV14.kmz ( 808.3K ) Number of downloads: 187

Thank you very much!
Fernando

I found that not all images in the json manifests have a -thm counter part (sol 0 gives thousands of errors, for instance). Because there is no way to find whether a file exists on the server without trying to download it, one is then left with the need to recover from the 403 error (when the -thm file does not exist) by loading the full size file... which may also not exist, which needs another recovery routine. This is more overhead.

This is, in essence, why I opted for downloading images in relatively small groups.

I also found the json manifests do not list the exact same files the official site shows. For instance, for sol 0 (my nemesis!) json lists 3270 images - of which fewer than 1000 exist on the given url - but the official site mentions 2198.

Any information on this subject is very much appreciated.

Fernando

Doug,
I want to implement this next. But I found the json manifest also points to files with a different file name structure, for instance
... /msss/02938/mhli/2938MH0007060001004000I01_DXXX.jpg
I found a document describing the structure of the file name in your example. Where can I find a description of these file name's structure (some parts are obvious)? Do image sequences also appear on these files?

Any information is much appreciated.

Fernando

I am releasing a few additional functions for the MSL Image Browser. In a separate post I'll discuss some issues which have influenced some decisions and prevented implementing some of the suggestions - I'm very grateful for those.

Recent images are now highlighted by a red border. Right now - and this is very easy to change - "recent" means the image has been added in the last 72 hours. I had to choose a criteria. It could have been "added since my last visit" but this implies storing the date and time of "my last visit" in a special area of the browser (using a standard - and safe - HTML 5 API). Please let me know if you're interested in having this option. A row of buttons for each sol with "recent" images (according to the above criteria) appears just below the page banner. Click them to go the the respective sol.

On the main page three new buttons (on the left panel) allow invoking three different views of a sol's image set:

• Grid view - just the images (reduced in size, if necessary), side by side (the layout already present in previous releases)
• List view - one image per row (reduced in size, if necessary) with a few basic data points
• Recent - only the sol's recent images in a grid layout

The Grid and List views are influenced by the filter selection buttons whereas the Recent view is not and always shows the recent images, regardless of the instrument or image type.
To speed-up the download it is now done in groups of up to 250 images each. This number was chosen because, right now, 54.3% of all sols have 250 images or less, 86.9% have 500 images or less, 95.6% have 750 or less, and 96.2% have 1000 images or less. Thus, the vast majority of sols requires very few clicks. The use of -thm thumbnails is discussed in another post. While there are more images to download a "Show more" button appears at the bottom of the images set.

I also added a "Go to Top" button at the bottom of the image set, for ease of use.

One consequence is that if one is looking for all the images of a certain category then all the sol's images must be downloaded. The list and grid views are independently loaded and scrolled; it is possible to have downloaded all images in one view but not on the other but, since the images are downloaded, showing them in a view is very fast. There is a new counter in the sol's statistics showing how many images have been downloaded (which changes with the view, naturally).

No changes were done to the URL list page.

The image view page now has a "magnifier" capability. This is intended to help better see details of the bigger images. Click the button (it is a toggle) and a small lens is positioned on the upper left corner of the image. The enlarged contents of the lens are shown on an overlay at the page top left (below the banner). The enlarged area is a 6x6 of the lens. Please let me know if you are interested in other settings or being able to set it as required.
Note: this does not increase the image's resolution, just enlarges the image, possibly blurring it. As such, the magnifier is not made available for small images.

You can download the image, in the original size, by right-clicking on it (the same is valid for the main page views).
Thank you for using the tool. Please let me know your thoughts, any requests, or bugs you may find.

Fernando

 MSL_Image_Viewer_2020NOV11.zip ( 17.11K ) Number of downloads: 503

On the road again! It feels good, though I had my view(er)s elsewhere (still not done with that!).
Update to sol 2933. Thanks Phil, for keeping us all informed.
Fernando
 The_Martian_Way_MSL_Curiosity_Sol_2933_2020NOV06.kmz ( 806.54K ) Number of downloads: 248

Here is an improved (I hope!) version of my MSL Image Viewer. Still work in progress so, for the time being, I'll continue to distribute it here. Having been on vacation last week I only had time to implement part of your suggestions - thank you all for those.

To install, download the zip file to your favourite location and unzip it. You should see the following 5 files:

• MSLImageViewer.html - the main page and the only one you should call;
• MSLImageDisplay.html - called from the main page to display a single image in large format, with associated information ;
• MSLImageUrlList.html - called from the main page to display a list of URLs of the currently selected (visible) images ;
• MSLImageViewer.css - Cascading Style Sheets for the project ;
• MSLImageViewer.js - JavaScript code for the project.

I made a general review of the code to make it more robust and changed the layout a bit (it is stable now).

Opening the MSLImageDisplay.html page automatically loads the images (in small format) of the most recent sol. Below the header, on the left, there is a bar with several sections: a sol navigator, sol statistics, image filters, and option selectors. To its right lies the images area.

The sol navigator has:

• two buttons to move to the previous or the next sol that has images - sols with zero images are skipped over. "First sol" and "Last sol" stoppers are dynamically generated. Buttons are accordingly disabled.

• an input field to directly go to any sol - if the sol does not exist or has no images a message is issued and the sol does not change.

Below the navigator there is a panel with a few statistics for the sol.

Next comes the image filters panel. Those are grouped into two categories: cameras (mastcam, chemcam, hazard, etc.) and image types (full, subframe, etc.). Only the entries that exist on the sol are shown. It is now possible to select one or more entries in each category. Entries in the same category are ORed and the two categories and ANDed. For instance, select all Front Haz Right and Left cams but only for full frame images. "Show all" and "Hide all" buttons per category provide shortcuts.

These filters are "sticky". When you move from sol to sol only the categories that were previously selected will be shown - until you change them. But note that all the images for the sol will still be loaded. Having selected (or deselected) a category that does exist on the new sol does not cause an error.

Entries are selected by toggle buttons. A green or red rim indicates whether the filter is active or not.
The option selectors panel currently contains just one button. The "List URLs (of visible images)" button opens a new page with the list of full URLs of the images that are currently visible. The page has a "Copy to the clipboard" button.
The page's right side contains the sol's images. Place the mouse over an image to reveal the image's full URL.

Clicking on an image opens it in a new page and shows the associated information. Images are shown at their natural size, if they fit the screen, otherwise they will be reduced to fit. From this page you can load the previous or the next image. Any number of such pages can be simultaneously open, allowing, for instance, to compare the images.

In addition to the suggestions I did not have the time to implement I have other ideas. For instance, highlighting the recent images.
But what is recent? 24h? 48h? 1 week? Please tell me your opinion. It is very easy to highlight recently added images for a specific sol. But finding all recently added images implies going through the json files for all sols. This takes time and uses network and should perhaps be implemented as an on-demand process (this is the drawback of a client-side, versus server-side, implementation).

Your feedback is requested and most welcome. Sorry for the long post.
Fernando
EDIT: the attachment has been removed. A new version, supporting more functions, is available. See post #56

Thank you for sharing this. Fast, straight and simple! Definitely useful. Cheers
Fernando

Another challenge! By the way, I couldn't reproduce the bug you've mentioned. It worked for all the days you pointed out and a few extra on either end of the interval. Perhaps it is related to the slowness of the loading? I'll make it more obvious in the tool when it is loading. Thanks
Fernando

Merci beaucoup Damia!

For your encouragement and great suggestions. I'm compiling a list and will work on them as time allows, now that I know I'm heading in the right direction (but I'll be mostly off next week, COVID allowing).
Thank you also for your offer to host the tool. Right now it is evolving, so it is not the right time, but I'll get back to you on that. Isolating the JS and CSS in separate files is good practice, this was just the prototype.

To all:I may need to create several html pages (in addition to the above mentioned JS and CSS files) so I may be distributing a small zip file in the future.
Thank you for the information, nice reviews and ideas. Keep'em coming!