Tank Tracks would be a nightmare - stuck on rocks, bogging down with dust, nowhere near as much mobility as the rockerbogie

Doug

Most of us here probably use PTGui, img2png and so on...

well - when I have a sols full of .imgs - I put img2png in it, and a bat file containing..

del *rat*.*
md IMG
move *r1*.IMG IMG
move *r2*.IMG IMG
move *r3*.IMG IMG
move *r4*.IMG IMG
move *r5*.IMG IMG
move *r6*.IMG IMG
move *r7*.IMG IMG
move *r8*.IMG IMG
move *L8*.IMG IMG
img2png *.IMG -r

move *.IMG IMG


Sometimes I have other things in there - like moving other filetypes ( IOsomething is one ) - and sometimes I just MD a thumb folder, and move the processed ones in there afterwards (this is what I do in my huuuge HDD of archived stuff - so I have all the IMG's, and all of them as PNG's, with left in the root, right in a subfolder and thumbs in a sub folder.

I use a photoshop action that takes L257 or whatever, and reduces it to a colour frame on L5 - then I cull the other frames, leaving me with all the colour frames from that sol as PNG's

THEN - I can use autopano.exe /project:ptgui which will create a new pts file for any and all mosaics it recognises

Anyhow - anyone know a way of writing a bat or something - which will go into folder consecutively, and run those bat files? i.e. I've got folders called Sol001 to Sol270 - and I can dump the img2png and my bat file into each - but then I have to go and run it 270 times to get the results - any ideas on shortcuts for that?

Doug

I'd suggest running between dunes as much as posible.

Doug

The arm was built to carry the instruments, and the instruments only. It doesnt have the power in the motors, or the strength in its structure to lift the rover.

It's not like we're trying to climb up a 40 degree slope here - backing out is a very valid option I'd have thought.

Doug

You're assuming the clouds would be white.

Why

They're very very rarely white here on earth, let alone on mars

Even blind drives still have built in high water mark limits for slope, slippage and motor current etc. I'm suprised that it ploughed on as far as it did - but They'll just back out of it I'm sure - however the challenge is..

why is THIS dune so soft?

is this going to be the behaviour on dunes in the future?

what driving strategies can minimise this?

what are the best slippage, slope and currrent limits to continue driving over this stuff?

I'm sure eng. meetings are taking place almost as we speak to try and sort this out.

Doug

My boot's firmly in the netlander camp - but it'll be an interesting poll - not had one for a while

I think there were lessons learnt with B2 (no one had tried to build something of that genre before) - and I think those lessons should be used in going for an intermediate step - even if it involves putting Exomars back to '12, '14 - I'm not fussed. I still think that ESA should be attempting a Netlander style mission - infact...it's POLL TIME

Consider yourselved all firmly bitch-slapped

Doug

Ahh yes - a URL might help

http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/in...fobjectid=37020

Doug

In a list of a few interesting reports - one of an ESA Venus entry probe including a balloon that drops many micro-probes.

Doug

I've made all these subforums so the good stuff doesnt get lost in the noise.

USE THEM!

Doug

After 15 months, I'd have thought everyone would have got over the fact that stuff will just appear as and when it does and theres nothing we can really do

Doug

http://moc.rlproject.com/end_vic_4m.jpg goes some of the way

Doug

We never see it because they dont take the pictures

Doug

Thats a little cracker - would make an ace poster

Doug

It's feasable, but I'd imagine unlikely that Sojourner is still powering up every morning. Perhaps a brush-off of the solar array and it might work.

Doug

It went VERY well - I'd say about 80 in the auditorium and I've had requests to do a talk in York, and near the Watford Tunnel - and I will be doing a slightly more technical talk for teh BAA Instruments and Imaging Section in May (in Northampton)



Doug

Sojourners batteries gave up after a few weeks and it became a fully solar powered mission.

doug

Right - off to catch a train down there now - if any of you can make it, it'd be great to meet up and have a chat

Doug

You forgot to mention your day job

Transcribing the director reports for us

Doug

We do? Since when

Before MER - JPL had Viking 1, Viking 2, Pathfinder and Sojourner, and the failed MPL.

We've had Beagle 2.

Something like netlander is, imho a VITAL step towards attempting something like Exomars - if for little reason than to gain experience in operating a spacecraft on mars - and experience and data in the engineering challenges of getting there.

Doug

You will But not quite yet

A mug is the first on my list - the big pioneer logo with unmannedspaceflight.com underneath

Doug

Those are STUNNING!

Doug

I made green by simply have a 50% transparent red image over the blue image. - I used the GIF's most of the time, but where an image was particularly dark, or light, or non-contrasting, I used the IMG instead

Doug