MSL Route Map Options

[MarsInMyLifetime]

In the JPL Photojournal gallery I finally paid attention to this 3D image of the Glenelg site--worth viewing side by side with the current route map to appreciate the remarkable elevations (albeit enhanced in this view) that Curiousity is traversing:

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA16210 (context page for the image versions)

[stewjack]

In the JPL Photojournal gallery I finally paid attention to this 3D image of the Glenelg site--worth viewing side by side with the current route map

Thanks for the link. I have an anaglyph graphic of the same area, but at a lesser (and unknown) 3d exaggeration. The labeled 10X exaggeration should be a big help for orientation purposes.

[Phil Stooke]

Update for sol 120 - a good location but only an assumed straight line route right now. That may be updated. This also includes some new names from the recently released map. Note that I am choosing to use 'Glenelg' for a region, not a specific point, but I may revise that later.

Phil

[Phil Stooke]

Updated route map. I have corrected the first guess of the 121 position I made in another thread (and added a note there). The 120-121 route is only a guess in the absence of rear-looking images.

Phil

[Phil Stooke]

This is a different version of the map with a scaled grid. I will post it from time to time along the way.

Phil

[Phil Stooke]

And another update:

sol 123, descending towards the Bay.

Phil

[Phil Stooke]

Sol 124 update.

Phil

[Phil Stooke]

And... sol 125 update. The route from 124 to 125 is only a guess so far.

Phil

[brellis]

hmm, left turn mid-drive - avoiding or pursuing?

[elakdawalla]

Just taking advantage of a natural ramp to drop down a low ledge.

[jmknapp]

I updated the rover track map on http://curiositymsl.com to use OpenLayers mapping javascript code, allowing you to zoom/pan and such. As before, the rover position is based on the unofficial NAIF data which is updated roughly every day.

MSL track map

[Phil Stooke]

Here's the map with the sol 127 move added. As always, adjustments to earlier positions or route segments may be added as well.

For the sol 127 position, I have mapped it using a circular half-pan at this location (a bit bigger than the recently posted version by Ant103) and there's no doubt in my mind that the position I show here is better than the one at the end of the map linked in the previous post. I love jmknapp's new things, but something's slightly off. His background image is an orthophoto, supposedly corrected by using a DEM to remove distortions. Mine is not (because the reprojection loses fine detail). So my positions are as close as I can get them to the true position relative to surface features, but those features are displaced a bit by slightly oblique viewing of relief. Therefore, so are my positions, they are not in the exact x,y location but they are adjacent to the correct features. If you overlay jmknapp's map and mine you can see the distortion caused by relief. So why are the x,y postions in the new map not in quite the right places relative to the background image? I suspect it's partly a matter of registration of the two datasets, and partly that the DEM is not perfect and so leaves residual distortions in the orthophoto.

Mapping is more complicated than it appears at first.

Phil

[RoverDriver]

...
So why are the x,y postions in the new map not in quite the right places relative to the background image? I suspect it's partly a matter of registration of the two datasets, and partly that the DEM is not perfect and so leaves residual distortions in the orthophoto.
Mapping is more complicated than it appears at first.
Phil

Phil that might be true. We are close to the very (Eastern) edge of the DEM here. You could try to see if the ESP_023957_1755 DEM works better.

Paolo

[jmknapp]

No doubt your triangulations from the circular pans etc. are more accurate for fixing the position on the map. I'm just taking the MSL_TOPO coordinates from SPICE at face value and admit to registering the SPICE-generated track (slight translation and rotation) to the DEM HiRISE photo so it more or less matched NASA's map and your map. Hopefully things will be pretty linear from there, and the spherical distortions near the equator won't be too bad. I am under no illusion that mapping is easy! I gather that generating a DEM from a HiRISE stereo pair is a very labor-intensive process, prone to artifacts if not done right, which is why there aren't a whole lot of them.

[Phil Stooke]

I am actually delighted to see the different approaches that are being used here. My method often will not show me wiggles along the route, if tracks are not imaged, but your data help show where they are.

Phil