Who the heck would want the images white-balanced by default anyways? Besides, a raw image isn't called a "raw image" for nothing.

From what I've read, MAHLI's images are white-balanced internally. It uses a calibration target mounted on the rover for this.

http://msl-scicorner.jpl.nasa.gov/Instruments/MAHLI/

"MSL carries the MAHLI Flight Calibration Target for color/white balance, resolution and focus checks, and verification of UV LED functionality. The target will be mounted in a vertical position on the rover (i.e., vertical when the rover is on a surface with a slope of 0°) to help prevent dust accumulation."

Looking at the raw images, it's also obvious that MAHLI images come already white-balanced, in contrast to Mastcam images. A good example is the white surface of the rover; on Mastcam images it has an ever-present yellow/orange cast, while in MAHLI images it's white.

Examples:
Mastcam http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/ra..._DXXX&s=106
MAHLI: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/ra...1_DXXX&s=85

I'm on the team that built MAHLI, and I can assure you there is no internal white-balancing. The cal target can be used to do white balance, or it could be if it wasn't covered with dust from the landing.

If there's a perceptible difference in white balance between the cameras (I just looked at a few images, and it's hard to say for sure since the imaging geometries aren't very similar), it probably has to do with the slightly different cut-on wavelength of the bandpass filter.

For the multi-spectral sequences, does anyone know the probable order of filters used?

This document lists the filters in a certain order:

MASTCAM MULTISPECTRAL IMAGING

...which might be taken to be the preferred order, but how about the sequences where only 4 or 6 filters are used? for example, this ML sequence of four from sol 173:

Sol 173 ML

It's interesting how the mast shadow essentially disappears for the two later frames--which would be logical if those filters were toward the infrared?

You could possibly figure it out from the time stamps; it takes twice as long to go from filter N to N+2 as from filter N to N+1.

As I've noted previously, the thumbnail tint can be used for any filter with different visible throughput, and the infrareds can maybe be told apart from timing or the amount of dark current, as the exposure times go up as you get farther into the IR.

Then perhaps patterns would emerge as to how they're using the filters; as you observe, there seems to have been some evolution in which ones are used.

We're very close to the date of the first expected PDS release. If patterns aren't obvious from the raws, comparisons between raws and PDS-released images might provide clues that you could generalize from, going forward.

That's good to hear.

Can we expect to find the release at the Analyst's Notebook?

Per http://pds-geosciences.wustl.edu/missions/msl/index.htm - "MSL Analyst's Notebook - Coming with Release 1. Provides search, display, and download tools for MSL data sets."

Subsequent releases will be every 90 days after Feb 27th initial release of sols 0-90.

The imaging node release dates are here: http://pds-imaging.jpl.nasa.gov/schedules/msl_release.html - Release 1 EDRs on same date as above, RDRs on Mar 20th.

Answered from a question in this thread...


In general, I usually do the following for the big anaglyphs....

~ First, I run raw MC100's and MC34's through the appropriate (manually recorded preset for image size in question) Photoshop automation to carefully remove all the lens "schmutz" from each set (MC100 has 2 big ones and MC34 has now developed 3 smaller ones) so there aren't any distracting "floaters" in the final anaglyph. They're very distracting and break the immersion.

~ I then mosaic each separately with as close to the same projection as possible (varies depending on the pano).

~ Aligning them is done manually by eye in Photoshop by dragging the left channel over the right, and resizing and aligning it by eye with transparency set at 50%. Before splitting the channel colors I usually tweak the levels for an bit brighter illumination without saturating the whites. Some anaglyphs tend come out rather dark otherwise.

~ The crucial (and tricky) part is getting all the matching L & R objects in the matching channels to align along the same horizontal plane for the least eye strain. Even with a near identical initial projection for each, it usually requires a bit of careful warping in several areas. That's the most time (& CPU) consuming part.

~ And lastly, by aligning the horizontal offset so the focal point (where the channels have little to no offset) is more biased to the immediate foreground rather than the distance, it keeps eye strain in check because the eye seems to naturally prefer that the left channel falls to the left of the right channel. Below that focal point the channels reverse, which is harder on the eye. That said, the reason not to have the focal point at the bottom of the frame is that in doing so the top offsets often become far too wide to pull together at high zooms so a compromise focal point must be determined. This will vary depending on the field depth between top and bottom of course.

If all works right... it comes out looking good!

Do you really have evidence that the 34mm has defects that weren't there before? I don't but I haven't been looking very hard for several weeks.

Mike, I first noticed the three 34mm spots a few weeks ago when proofing a large anaglyph. They're hard to see in 2D against the surface because of the jumbled noise in the terrain but pop out subtly as 'floaters" when viewed in stereo if not cleaned before anaglyphing. The four frame animated GIF below (from the raw Sol 184 set) points these three culprits against the relative smoothness of an out of focus robotic arm...



Your post made me curious as to how long they've actually been there, and to my surprise it looks like they've been present since the first good 34mm shots came down on Sol 3. You can see them in the same positions (as in the GIF above) at the center of this full frame series from Sol 3: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/ms...5000E1_DXXX.jpg. Now knowing now where to look for these - especially easy to spot if one flips rapidly in an image viewer at any large 34mm set - and yup, they're there.

This fits my expectations. These are not on the lens but on the focal plane and have been there since we buttoned up the optics during final assembly.

There are many more than three visible on MC34 - in a quick count I found at least ten on the sol 24 images. They're easiest to see in the sky shots, but their visibility depends strongly on the filter. For example, compare these two filtered sky frames:
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/ms...2000D1_DXXX.jpg
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/ms...1000D1_DXXX.jpg
I think that makes sense, since the visibility in a filtered image will depend on the position of the speck with respect to the Bayer pattern. So their visibility in a filtered sky image could be greater than in a full-colour sky image, which is some weighted average over the four subpixels.

Do you about the schedule for MARDI images release ? I mean, the raw images, not the lossy-compressed ones.
And could you tell me if the EDL sensor suite raw data (IMU, radar, etc...) that were stored onboard have been downloaded and, if yes, are they available to the public ?

Thanks.

Just a thought.. Saw this picture today http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/ra..._DXXX&s=293

MAHLI took that at night with its LED's if I'm not mistaken... which brought up the thought.. How cool would it be for Curiosity to take a self portrait at night! (like this at night http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/mult...;/pia16239.html)

Is this possible?