I don't think so but to be sure I grabbed the NAVCAM pics and re-measured the distance using AlgorimancerPG. Confirmed distance is about 8.8-9 meters. Given the extent of about 50 pixels in the M-100 image, I continue to estimate it around 3.3 cm tall (say 3-4 cm to be safe).

Someone made a wonderful 3D computer model of Curiosity, available for $15:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/mars-ro...curiosity/95997

The one on TurboSquid is more detailed, but goes for $200:

http://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/3d-mar...er-model/685402

Could open up a chance for some cool visualizations, particularly if driven by actual rover NAV data.

Here's a test animation I did with the renderosity model and Poser Pro 2010 animation software--a drilling sequence, apropos to this thread:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6zaToRu5bc

I made a crude check based on orbital imagery and agree, very roughly 9 m distance and roughly 3 cm tall (+/- 1 cm or so).

Do I understand right that you've actually been able to extract the drill orientation during drilling from the engineering data, or is that an estimate based on the hazcam image? Why does the MH shot need to be directly overhead? We can see the full extent of the shadow.

I agree with jmknapp about the depth of the hole. With the new MastCam images I get around 1.1-1.2 cm. deep.

The engineering data doesn't have any marker that says "we started drilling at this time" so I needed a image that showed the drill approximately in position. Given the time of that HAZCAM image the orientation of the drill (MSL_PADS) comes out of the engineering data.

It's much like getting camera pointing, except that camera images conveniently have a time stamp, and drill events don't (publicly).

I was thinking it was hard to tell if part of the shadow included a side of the hole, if the MAHLI shot wasn't directly overhead--maybe not.

I see; thanks Joe. It sounds like that's going to be our best estimate.

MC perhaps gives a better sense of the depth of the hole (subject to the usual depth perception ambiguity):

Four Sol 181 activities, as seen from Front Hazcam Right A, 700x500 pixel region, no further processing:

I have the struct kernel at least--here's my kernel file:

http://curiosityrover.com/rover2.txt

Using the date of the MAHLI image 07FEB2013 1:43:31 UTC gives an et of 413473478.

With that et, the follwoing call works fine to get the rotation matrix between MSL_MAHLI and MSL_TOPO

pxform_c("MSL_MAHLI","MSL_TOPO",et,cmat) ;

But this call to get the MAHLI state fails:

spkezr_c("MSL_MAHLI",et,"MSL_TOPO","NONE","MSL_LANDING_SITE",mahlistate,&lt) ;

I think you need http://naif.jpl.nasa.gov/pub/naif/MSL/kern..._struct_v01.bsp which you don't seem to have; the IK file you do have is not the same thing.

I've dreamed to do this since the Mastcam34 images were released. Sol 176 images bring me closer to that dream. And a little Gimp sausage, and here we go ! A new postcard, at twilight times, from Yellowknife Bay .

Enjoy !

Hey, that works--thanks so much. Now to fredk's question, here are the XYZ coordinates (north, east, elev relative to landing site) of the MAHLI camera in meters and rotation angles in degrees for the two shots:

0180MH0146001000E1_DXXX 2013 FEB 07 01:46:35 UTC XYZ [ 0.561 444.523 -17.372 ] roll -4.39, pitch 4.69, yaw 47.94
0180MH0146001001E1_DXXX 2013 FEB 07 01:49:36 UTC XYZ [ 0.566 444.527 -17.371 ] roll -4.38, pitch 4.70, yaw 48.12

Not sure offhand what the best coordinate system is for figuring out the stereo, but those are some numbers anyway!

Drill testing continues with another success on Sol 182, so far only a small sequence of MAHLI thumbnails are available of the hole, so difficult to judge the depth, but it appears somewhat deeper than the first one. Like the 'mini drill', there appears to be some tailings at the bottom of the hole

From this we can at least derive the distance of the two points to sqrt(5²+4²+1²)mm=sqrt(42)mm=6.48mm, in good correspondence with the visual inference of the displacement, regarding the 1mm precision; pointing changed just 0.18 degrees.

Damien: Great! We can begin to dream of the trip to Mount Sharp.

A region of a Sol 182 MAHLI image:

Visually, I get a quotient of the bottom by the top diameter projection of about 0.73. May be this can be used to estimate the relative depth of the two drill holes.
EDIT: For a better comparison of the two holes:

and

The distances of the two MAHLI images from the rims seem to be almost the same 5cm.

This Sol 182 MAHLI image
seems well-suited for a "relative" shadow method:

I get a bit more than double the depth for the second hole, 2.25-fold as a first draft, comparing the lengths of the shadows relative to the diameter of the respective hole floors.