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Posted by: RGMars Jul 16 2017, 08:20 PM

Does anyone have advice for someone who wants to edit their own photos? I want to look through the archives of missions like Voyager or Viking but I don't know where to start software wise (or how to use it). My operating system is MacOs, and I don't have Photoshop. All help is appreciated...

Posted by: nprev Jul 16 2017, 10:52 PM

Edited the topic title for clarity, and because I think this could be a worthwhile discussion. We have what I believe is the largest and most talented pool of "amateur" planetary image processing gurus in the world here at UMSF. I encourage any and all to offer your advice and tips for newcomers to the art on this thread.

Posted by: Tom Dahl Jul 17 2017, 03:42 AM

The Viking lander images are in an unusual format, but fortunately there is a free viewer application that can read the image files, https://pds.nasa.gov/tools/nasa-view.shtml. A http://pds-geosciences.wustl.edu/missions/vlander/images.html is available. The Index Tables list all images in order, with brief description and meta-data. The Image Browser shows reduced size versions of all images, along with the image name such as 12A001.BB1 (the very first image from VL1). Given the image name, you can locate the same image in the corresponding lander's Index Table and then download the raw image file. Use the NASAview application to see the full-size image and convert it to JPG or GIF (preferred due to lossless encoding I believe).

You will not be able to reconstruct color images with NASAview, unfortunately. A separate tool such as Photoshop is needed. There are free tools that would do the job, probably someone else can recommend one.

Viking Orbiter image data are also available (search the web for the Planetary Data System Viking Orbiter archive) but I have not done anything with them.

Posted by: Tom Tamlyn Jul 17 2017, 06:10 AM

From the planetary society website, what is likely an excellent introduction:

http://www.planetary.org/explore/space-topics/space-imaging/tutorials.html

WebEx is a Cisco video conferencing platform for Windows, with some MacOS support. I've never used it myself, and the current WebEx MacOS player is not supported on my aging Snow Leopard system (10.6.8), but you might be able to run it on a more recent version of the MacOS.

Posted by: RGMars Jul 17 2017, 08:34 PM

Thanks! Yes, WebEx works on the newest version of MacOS! I realize that that you mention that these video tutorials are essentially an introduction. Could you point me in the right direction for some more advanced information that I can access in the future?
Thanks!

Posted by: RoverDriver Jul 18 2017, 02:29 PM

My image processing and machine vision requirements are usually so unique and weird that I almost always roll my own code but in terms of public domain packages I sometimes use are:

- GIMP (similar to Photoshop)
- ImageJ (I use it to view and analyze DEMs for example)
- Meshlab (for meshing and 3D display)

I also use the following paleo-software

- xv
- xanim
- gnuplot
- xgraph

but that's just because I'm so 8bit. CLI toolchains I regularly use are:

- ImageMagick
- netpbm
- kakadu (for JPEG2000)
- ffmpeg (for animation/video)
- sox (to convert accelerometer data to sound)

Paolo

Posted by: Tom Tamlyn Jul 18 2017, 10:35 PM

Sorry, no. I don't process images, and I know about Emily Lakdawalla's tutorials only because I follow her writing on planetary science and other topics. If you have specific questions after watching the five hours of tutorials and working through the examples, there are members on this forum who can probably help.

There is a free advanced software package, ISIS, designed for planetary scientists to use in processing archived data from NASA's robotic missions. ISIS comes with extensive tutorials, documentation, and online support forums, but it's . . ., well, take a look for yourself. https://isis.astrogeology.usgs.gov/documents/Overview/Overview.html

If you can digest the ISIS tutorials and documentation, you'll probably be answering questions on this forum more often than asking them.

Posted by: djellison Jul 19 2017, 01:28 AM

Mainly Paolo uses Meshlab on his iPad because it's about 100x faster than the 15 year old rover planner workstations

Posted by: JohnVV Jul 19 2017, 05:35 AM

for me i started out in the mid 1980's in photolabs and studios doing custom hand and machine film processing ( color and b&w )

then moved to Gimp in the very early days ( pre 1.0 release )

i do not run apple but i think there is a mac ISIS3 build ( or use a KVM )
i use ISIS3 for most of my workflow
---
import into isis
do the level 1 or 2 processing
export to 32 bit raw
use gmic ( it has many tools)
import back into isis


But isis3 takes a lot of TIME to learn , there is not a lot of guides other than basics

i also use Gmic and GDAL , these too have a very steep learning curve and use the Terminal - no real gui )

the free gpl tool Qgis ( uses GDAL ) will import pds img/lbl image sets
but georeferancing NON EARTH THINGS is a bit fun

image processing by TYPING things -- go figure

most of the imaging data is in PDS and in it's own format ( image.img and image.lbl )
the old data is however in pds 1 or 2 format the current is the pds3 format
this can make things FUN


there is also VICAR ( on NASA's github page) but this is rather OLD code


the first thing is to READ , then READ SOME MORE !!!

start with this site and this topic
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showforum=57


there is also some good general info buried at Celestialmatters
http://forum.celestialmatters.org/index.php

i tend to include the terminal command line i used like in this
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=8169&view=findpost&p=229850

or the tools like in this post
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=8169&view=findpost&p=229833


now i have been doing this for YEARS i started with image inpainting and noise removal ( and jpg artifact removal) in 2001
using GREYCstoration ( now G'Mic) and a few other tools back then
even the c code used to inpaint the Verena venus images to remove glitches


so PRACTICES and ask questions