(before reading the PDF)
If they've called it DUSK - I'm going to vomit

Doug

Woo yay - I'm getting wedges.

I dont think they're retaining their orientation when imported into Max - it might be different with different importers. For now - I'm trying some single image sets etc.

Doug

Woudlnt it make more sense to simply spend the time, money, volume, mass and energy on making a more robust deployment mechanism in the first place? Anything dynamic and adaptable enough is going to be far far more complex than whatever mechanism it's sent to fix, and as a result, far more likely to fail that the mechanisms in question anyway

Doug

I've looked into getting 'casts onto iTunes before, and it's not hard, but it's a bit convoluted. I'll look into it.

Doug

There is no commonality between the aparant failure of the PFS cover, and MARSIS or the Huygens problem. I know you like to think outside the box, but that's just wayyy waAYy outside it

Doug

Depending on listener numbers, we're thinking either an official Doug'n'Jim fan club, or perhaps some merchendise

Thank for giving them a home Emily.

Doug

For those that have not seen the BBC series 'The Planets' - a Venera scientists recalled the problem being described thus

Senior Engineer "I believe we have landed in something sticky and viscous"
Junior Engineer "Yes sir, in the sh**"



Doug

Speaking to JB - he doesnt know the image release policy for CTX and MARCI yet either.

He suggested that the intention is to wait till after the test images, and then make a decision during the 6 month hiatus.

History would suggest that CTX and MARCI probably wont get the same treatment that HiRISE will, and to be fair, the baseline now is 3 or 6 month batches, 6 months after aquisition, which MER, MGS and Odyssey are doing. Wr.t. real time raw JPG's - anything in the MER or Cassini style has to be considered a major bonus ( and at no small cost w.r.t. processing and hosting ) - it's all too easy to get complacent and assume that that's the sort of thing we can come to expect - but realistically, it isnt.

Doug

Update from JB
"We had an HGA session with Opportunity this morning and all is well with the rover. The Odyssey folks think they'll have the spacecraft back up over the weekend. So it may be mostly a relatively quiet "recharge" weekend for the rovers. A bit of a shame that we won't get much driving in, but recharging and topping the batteries is also a good thing to do this time of year..."

Doug

Hmm - pringles.


Doug

Ciclops is quite old remember, it probably had to have its design frozen about 12 years ago.

Anyhoo - QT7 required :0
Doug

Going on what Jim said yesterday - the most important thing is robustness. Your compression has to be able to withstand a lost bit or a lost packet, and not trash the whole image - hence why they developed something themselves. It's also highly tweakable and can compress things like the sky very very well, but still retain good detail in things like layering etc.

Doug

Yes - Keith thinks that it's not enough that they convinced C.P. to get the Cassini images to go online in the MER style - he thinks their press office should be pickign a nice one every day and making a press release about it. Clearly he doesn't understand the lengthy process of getting a press release out from the CICLOPS team to the public and that if they DID do it, Keith would be lambasting them for taking too long writing nice press releases and not doing science.

Cassini is an outreach MARVEL, but KC can't moan about that, so he just gripes at it in some small, pointless way instead. I'm suprised he hasnt latched onto MER yet. Give him time.


Doug

The rovers will look after themselves for days on end - but I'm sure they'll be able to do some sort of uplink if needs be.

Doug

The UHF sequences have to be written well in advance ( a few weeks ) and then checked and rechecked before being uplinked several days in advance.

By the time something is sorted with MEX or MGS, the Odyssey problem will be sorted.

I've asked JB to keep me updated,

Meanwhile it's just “FIX YOUR DAMN SPACECRAFT….please” to LMA and holding tight until she’s un-safed

Doug

OK - trying to use the x3D importer for Blender......

http://www.blender.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=51299#51299

I hope there's as much genius-per-member there as there is here, should have it sorted in a flash.

But - it'd be nice to have something that's not going to involve wads and wads of blender-loading-and-exporting



Doug

B)-->

I've tried that - no luck yet. I'm a totally newbie with blender, and I went thru what was seemingly the obvious menus to import something, without any luck.

( http://people.mech.kuleuven.be/~pissaris/m...blenderx3d.html might help - having a look now )


Doug

Looking at the help file.. Max can import...
3D Studio Mesh (3DS)
3D Studio Project (PRJ)
3D Studio Shape (SHP)
Adobe Illustrator (AI)
AutoCAD (DWG)
AutoCAD (DXF)
Autodesk Inventor (IPT, IAM)
Initial Graphics Exchange Standard (IGES)
FiLMBOX (FBX)
LandXML /DEM /DDF (DEM, XML, DDF)
Lightscape Solution (LS), Lightscape Preparation (LP), and Lightscape View (VW)
Motion Analysis Hierarchical Translation-Rotation (HTR)
Motion Analysis TRC (TRC)
Stereolithography (STL)
VRML (WRL, WRZ)

(BUT the WRL importer is bloody terrible - it couldnt handle the point clouds, anything more than 12 polygons gives it a minor heart condition.)

But let's not just limit to 3ds max, there must be Ligthwave/Blender/Maya/Bryce fans around - anything that Accutrans ( which is sort of free ) can do would be sensible, then as many people as possible can use them...
http://www.micromouse.ca/fileformats.html

Doug

No it's not - Odyssey safe moded yesterday - expect a few days of blackout.

Can't complain, she's a damn good messenger - last blackout was back before purgatory

Doug

BINGO - Alex now owes me $1 - we had a book going on how long it'd be

He had 'increasingly obvious' for $2, and I had 'JAXA' for $3.

Good job you didnt mention the Discovery program, that would have emptied my wallet.

Doug

Well - they must do somewhere, but the 'product' is something made from that data, not the data itself.

Doug

Yes - a compressed image comes down, and they then rebuild a calibrated image from that, and all the other settings related to the camera at that time. Flatfield, Darkfield, Smear, temperature etc etc - to produced something calibrated.

Doug

That's not my understanding of it - I think the imagery data within an IMG is totally uncompressed (thus every full frame IMG is always 2mb. If they were in any way compressed, they would vary)

Doug

THE TRENCHINATOR - look for the new Q'n'A ( that's a full half hour long ) - we talk about trenchinating