MSL Post First Drive - Intermission, Start of Drive to Glenelg, Intermission between CAP 1B and 2 - Sols 17 through 29 Options

[elakdawalla]

Curiosity's Cap 1B phase was completed yesterday with the successful first drive, so now we're going into "Intermission." Dan Limonadi's guest post on the Society blog has great explanations of what all these phases mean.

There is an “intermission” that the science team will have between CAP 1B and CAP 2. The intermission will include initial drives away from the landing site, more in-depth ChemCam and Mastcam characterization and science observations, and the first SAM atmospheric science experiment. The total length of this period depends on how long the science team wants to drive before carrying on with sample chain checkout activities. The key flavor difference of intermission is that science is more in the driver’s seat and not trying to squeeze in between higher priority engineering checkout activities that have priority during CAP 1 and 2. Our current plan is to complete a significant fraction of our drive to Glenelg during intermission

Keep discussion of sol 9-16 imaging in the relevant thread -- not all of those full-frame Mastcam images are down yet.

[Brian Lynch]

That is a great video Mars3D, I tried finding Mars Explorer but only found a multiplayer driving game, where can I find the one that you used?

[jmknapp]

Presumably they work with the original images, not the jpeg (re-)compressed versions we see, and hence they do not have to deal with jpeg compression artifacts interfering with the de-Bayer process.

If that's what's causing the yellow/green artifacts, then providing bayer->jpg files instead of bayer->demosaiced->jpg files is no favor.

This page describes an "advanced" algorithm:

Self-Similarity Driven Demosaicking

Applying that to one of the mastcam bayered images (link) on the public website gives this:



Zooming in on a small area on the nameplate to show individual pixels:



So we're screwed?

[mcaplinger]

If that's what's causing the yellow/green artifacts, then providing bayer->jpg files instead of bayer->demosaiced->jpg files is no favor.

I've lost track of what's concerning you guys.

Straight bayer images were sent down as part of a calibration activity. We demosaic them and look at them, they're fine. Then JPL JPEG-compresses the original raw files for public release and and introduces these artifacts, which is clearly the wrong thing to do. Fortunately I think the use of raw files will be rare, so this should be an isolated incident.

[fredk]

providing bayer->jpg files instead of bayer->demosaiced->jpg files is no favor.

The policy has always been to supply jpegs of the original downlinked images, rather than do any processing first (apart from stretching/lut). Usually that's what we want, as it's as close as we can get to the original images before they show up on pds. In this case that policy has backfired a bit. Understandable I'd say.

This page describes an "advanced" algorithm:

There are now three of us (yourself, ugordan, and myself) who obtained similar results on demosaicing using very different approaches. I'd say this is going to be as good as we can do without going in by hand. Large smooth areas seem to be easy to fix. But where the periodic pattern ends, none of our methods can handle it.

Edit: thanks for that, mcaplinger. I was surprized that we were seeing these bayer images considering the bandwidth required.

[fredk]

Fortunately I think the use of raw files will be rare

Actually I'd call that unfortunate - I'm sure your debayered images are very pretty! And we (umsf'ers) will see them eventually. But of course you're limited in taking lossless images by the available bandwidth.

[jmknapp]

Ah, didn't know that the raw "bayer" images sent so far are for calibration & that the norm will be demosaiced. Sorry if I missed that explanation somewhere.

[mcaplinger]

Actually I'd call that unfortunate - I'm sure your debayered images are very pretty!

Yes, but I'm not sure they're distinguishable in any meaningful way from high-quality JPEGs; the old raw versus compressed debate familiar to all digital photographers. I'd rather have five JPEGs than one raw myself.

Based on looking at the public website thumbnails, the next batch of images will have been compressed with varying JPEG quality. Then I think they'll be decompressed and recompressed at a constant quality for public release, so I'm not sure what they'll look like. Be warned.

[fredk]

I'm not sure what they'll look like. Be warned.

When I was a little lad, I had to walk through 10 feet of snow for two days and two nights to get to the store that sold the National Geographic magazine showing a handful of Viking Mars pictures, re-photographed, grainy, with questionable colour accuracy, and completely unamenable to digital processing. And that was months after the landing!

Seriously, mcaplinger, endless thanks for all the input you provide here!

[Stu]

When I was a little lad, I had to walk through 10 feet of snow for two days and two nights to get to the store that sold the National Geographic magazine showing a handful of Viking Mars pictures, re-photographed, grainy, with questionable colour accuracy, and completely unamenable to digital processing. And that was months after the landing!

You were lucky...

[Phil Stooke]

Luxury!

Phil

[Eutectic]

Good thing we don't have to hand-color the pixels as was done with Mariner 4.

http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/multimedia/dis...amp;IM_ID=13006




Regarding the rounded granules at Bradbury Landing, they look tumbled. The larger cobbles have the usual ventifact facets from long exposure; they're too big to turn over. But the smaller stuff looks really rounded. The Meridiani blueberries started out spherical and harder than the sulfates and hydrated silicates that entombed them; it will be interesting to learn if the round granules and pebbles here have a favored composition. Presumably Earth's favorite weathering-resistant mineral, quartz, is not available here, but kilometers of sediment have been removed from this location -- a very thick column to select lag materials from. Rounding and sorting might have accompanied their original deposition more than the current environment.

[fredk]

Press conference at 2pm pacific time.

[climber]

This guy got THE very appropriate shirt to do the job.

[ElkGroveDan]

Good thing we don't have to hand-color the pixels as was done with Mariner 4.

I think this is the one that's hanging in the JPL media office. If I recall correctly Doug took a gigapan of the finished product which I am sure is accessible somewhere.

[Stu]

This guy got THE very appropriate shirt to do the job.

Actually, if you run that shirt through a deBayer filter it looks quite nice...