MSL Images & Cameras, technical discussions of images, image processing and cameras Options

[iMPREPREX]

Hey folks. I see a lot of controversy here in regards to de-bayering.

What's the story in a nutshell? Are we allowed to de-bayer them? And if so, what is the easiest and best way? I wish I knew why this was an issue. But that's probably due to my own ignorance in the matter.

[fredk]

Are we allowed to de-bayer them?

Yikes! They're public, so we can deBayer them, stretch them, Philovision them, unsharp mask them, solarize them, swap R and G channels, and finally raise each pixel value to the pi'th power, if it suits us.

The basic deal is that they're transmitting lossless, Bayered images, apparently for calibration purposes. We probably won't get very many of these in the future, since they take a lot of bandwidth. JPL jpegs the original images and makes them public, as they've always done. Unfortunately in this case the jpegging introduces blocky artifacts when we deBayer. If JPL deBayered them before jpegging, we wouldn't see the blocks. So we either hope that changes or wait for the full data release in six months.

[iMPREPREX]

All I have is a pattern I can't get rid of. Would look cool if it could be removed.

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[EdTruthan]

Here's a HUMONGOUS ANAGLYPH for anyone so inclined to peruse the Mt. Sharp foothills in a reasonably perceptible quantum of 3D... and surprisingly, there's some depth there!

After testing a few stitched frames out to see whether the 12 meters or so parallax difference between Sol 19 and Sol 23's color panos allowed for any 3D depth to be seen at the Mt. Sharp foothills or not I decided it warranted a BIG anaglyph just to check. Sol 19's pano has all the pictures down but unfortunately there's still 4 or 5 that have never arrived yet from from Sol 23 so there's a few missing frames in this version (the reddish areas). Now at first glance there doesn't seem to be much depth to perceive at the foothills, but zoom in a bit, and slowly pan around and sure enough... it's there alright. Seems the more you zoom in (better in the FULL version), the more evident it becomes. Sol 23 was used as left eye and Sol 19 as right. Sweet.

Here's a medium sized version (6500px x 922px):




...and here's THE FULL VERSION (19738px x 2100px): http://www.edtruthan.com/mars/Sol19-and-23...-19738x2100.jpg

EDIT: This image has been updated! (missing frames are down). See this post.

[Nix]

woaw, very nice work..

[fredk]

I second that. Very nicely done.

Let's hope for another M100 pan with a greater baseline to really pop out those butes and mesas...

[morganism]

The web interview with our camera operator !


http://blogs.agu.org/magmacumlaude/2012/08...onary-wedge-49/

[EdTruthan]

Let's hope for another M100 pan with a greater baseline to really pop out those butes and mesas...

Oh my, I agree and soon I hope! Using one of the top portions of the Sol 32 MC100 robotic arm photos as the left eye in an anaglyph test, though the horizon is frustratiingly out of focus it was enough to verify that the basline is now quite effective for imaging the base of Mt. Sharp with plenty of eye-popping depth. The test below is a little wonky to the eye because the red spectrum is so darned out of focus but it was enough to test the baseline shift's effectivness. I'd just love to do another full pan anaglyph with a new from a location somewhere well before Glenelg before it widens to much for a good Sol 19 pairing. Please give us another MC 100 full pan soon!

[elakdawalla]

Oh my. I'm actually not bothered by the fuzziness of the red channel at all; those buttes pop into spectacular depth-rich focus, and the yardang material above them is surprisingly spiky.

[fredk]

Now that's being resourceful! Very cool.

[fredk]

And here's my attempt at combining sol13 mastcamL (from James's mosaic) and sol32 navcam into a long baseling view. Navcam gives similar resolution to those out-of-focus mastcams, but covers a wide field. The distortions of navcam produce pretty severe headachiness at the sides of this anaglyph, so be warned:

[EdTruthan]

Very Nice! I find it interesting to note how little input the brain seems to require to construct a reasonably well defined binocular portrait even with such compromised data being received from the other half of the equation. And the general baseline distance from around Bradbury to the present location are really quite nice now for rendering the depth perspectives well without too much exaggeration. Now we just need a few crisp new long shots. Will definatetly be hitting "F5" a bit more than usual...

[Eyesonmars]

I've been wondering if it is technically feasible to use the Mastcam Video capability to search for and record dust devil activity. Can find nothing on the board forums or the internet on this. I know they plan on doing videos of phobos eclipses so this isn't too much of a stretch.

Lets say we point the mastcam wide angle in the general direction of the dark dunes for 30 min around solar noon. The strong albedo contrast along the dune boundary would be a preferred place for dust devil development - I would guess.

What are the memory/bandwith constraints in implementing something like this ? I suppose frame comparison software uploaded to the rover would be smart enough to return only video segments with changes between frames - ie dust devil/blowing dust activity.

IF this makes sense so far why not make this the sort of default mode for Mastcam when it is not being used otherwise.

[mcaplinger]

I've been wondering if it is technically feasible to use the Mastcam Video capability to search for and record dust devil activity.

IMHO, not really.

1) Even the 34mm Mastcam has a fairly narrow FOV (about 15 degrees.) Dust devil searching on MER was done with Navcam, see http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/bitstre...8/1/08-0444.pdf

2) There's no motion detection capability in the Mastcam hardware and doing it in software would be limited to a frame rate of maybe 1/4 to 1/10 fps at best.

3) There are power limitations and running the camera all the time isn't possible.

[Eyesonmars]

Thanks mcaplinger for the response.

Perhaps I read too much into the list of objectives on the Mastcam website
Mastcam Specs

One of the bullet items under the list of objectives is:

"Document atmospheric and meteorological events and processes by observing clouds, dust-raising events, properties of suspended aerosols (dust, ice crystals), and (using the video capability) eolian transport of fines"