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Google Mars 3d (With HiRISE!), Part of Google Earth 5
Poolio
post Feb 11 2009, 05:36 PM
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Newbie here. I usually just hover around these forums like a ghost, but I thought I'd share some of the stuff I've figured out about Google Mars.

I was trying to get the waypoints to work so that the label appeared only when you hovered over the icon, like in the "official" waypoints that take us through conjunction. It turns out that this is not permitted by the UI, but I dove into the XML and was able to figure it out. Basically you need to define a "styleMap" the contains two styles, keyed on "normal" and "highlight", and then set the placemark's "styleUrl" element to the map instead of the style. The key is that the "scale" should be zero for the "normal" style, and non-zero for the highlighted. Note that the "description" tag is necessary for the hover event to fire (and the label to show).

The attached file demonstrates this. It is a seamless extension of the Opportunity route map provided in Google Mars and picks up where that one leaves off. It includes the traverse path, waypoints, and local place names in the same format and structure that has already been established, updated through Sol 1795.

Attached File  oppy_traverse_2009.kml ( 6.37K ) Number of downloads: 642

It's actually pretty simple, but it will probably require that further updates be made in the XML instead of the application UI. Hopefully Google will surface style maps in a future release of the product.

There's a pretty decent reference guide to the KML syntax here:
http://code.google.com/apis/kml/documentat...lreference.html

Poolio
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djellison
post Feb 11 2009, 06:32 PM
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You should check into the Opportunity Route Map thread where Tesheiner is doing the same sort of KML thing.
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Tesheiner
post Feb 11 2009, 08:35 PM
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I saw those "normal/highlight" styles being used on the official route and other KMLs but thought it was better to "keep it simple" at least on my first version of route map in KML. It's not that bad, given that GE automatically hides some sol numbers if the user is looking to a wide area so they are not overlapped.
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Poolio
post Feb 11 2009, 10:38 PM
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Good idea, keeping it simple. I can't imagine being on the hook to do something like this every couple of days. On the other hand, I couldn't imagine not coming here every day to track the rovers' progress. I seem have zero capacity to make sense of the daily navcam images.

Anyway, it was a pain, sifting through all that XML trying to figure out what was important and what wasn't. Took me hours. A great deal of trial and error. That's why I wanted to put this out there, hopefully to save someone else the tedium. It's quite an amazing tool; I'm looking forward to seeing what other people can do with it.
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Tesheiner
post Feb 12 2009, 09:29 AM
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I had my share of "hours of trial and error" too some time ago. smile.gif I was trying to plot on GE some mountain-bike tours logged with a small GPS/datalogger but the format converter (csv to kml) which came with the little gizmo was producing some "unexpected" results so I attempted to directly modify the KML file content.

Thanks for the info re. normal/highlight modes. It IS useful, no doubt at all.
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algorimancer
post Feb 12 2009, 03:42 PM
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It's particularly nice navigating with a Spaceball (or Space Navigator) controller, though I had to play with the settings a bit to get it to respond well (the default settings aren't very good). It would be really nice if it would do stereo rendering, both as side-by side as well as supporting Stereographics frame switching. Perhaps someday. The available HiRise imagery seems unfortunately sparse.
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MouseOnMars
post Feb 12 2009, 04:19 PM
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I can remember struggling away with putting together some 3D views of Mars terrain a few years ago. So to have the entire Mars terrain in 3D makes me feel very spoilt !


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The Singing Badg...
post Feb 12 2009, 09:20 PM
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In case any readers haven't noticed, Google Mars also has a 'flight simulator mode', where you can fly a jet fighter or a prop plane over the surface. It's kinda fun to fly over Noctis Labyrinthus.

It's in the 'Tools' menu.
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Guest_jumpjack_*
post Feb 26 2009, 10:43 AM
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Did anybody verify if distance measurement tool is working properly in GoogleMars?
Also, having a "comparison image" overlayed somewhere to get an idea of how big are Mars features would be cool, but it can't be done if we don't know if the measurment tool gives right results.
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RoverDriver
post Feb 26 2009, 12:05 PM
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I spot checked on Meridiani where we drove the rover and the distances seem to match the visible features. This only validates the correlation between HiRISE and surface imaging and tracks. I have no idea relative to areas where there is no HiRISE data. I would be surprsed if there were large errors.

Paolo


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Guest_jumpjack_*
post Feb 26 2009, 01:22 PM
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I was not talking about images size, but about the "ruler" tool of GoogleEarth: if I drag it for 100 meters on Mars... are they ACTUALLY 100 meters, or just 60 (or whatelse, can't remember Mars radius...)
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djellison
post Feb 26 2009, 02:06 PM
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Nor is Paolo - he's talking about the ruler tool. And - as far as measuring where there is HiRISE imagery to corroborate the measurements - they're accurate - so, one can infer - it's accurate over the whole planet.
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Guest_jumpjack_*
post Feb 26 2009, 02:20 PM
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full inline quote removed - ADMIN

sorry, my fault.
thanks.
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Xerxes
post Feb 26 2009, 07:30 PM
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Re: the ruler tool

If you take the pole-to-pole distance using the ruler, you find Earth's hemicircumference to be about 19.5 Mm and Mars's to be about 10.5 Mm. So it looks like they do take it into account. (If you try this yourself, note that the distance will not update when you switch from Earth to Mars, so you have to nudge the endpoints a bit to get it to recalculate.)
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RoverDriver
post Feb 26 2009, 11:00 PM
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QUOTE (djellison @ Feb 26 2009, 06:06 AM) *
Nor is Paolo - he's talking about the ruler tool. And - as far as measuring where there is HiRISE imagery to corroborate the measurements - they're accurate - so, one can infer - it's accurate over the whole planet.



Just to confirm, ys I was measuring with the ruler tool on Hirise images as projected by GE (Mars). As far as inferring that this is correct over the entire surface, I would not be so certain. I'm sure they did the best they could but I would not be surprised if there were some areas where they had stitching problems and therefore locally the ruler might be giving a different value than the truth. But for our simple observations and measurements I think it is quite a remarkable tool. Quite impressive.

Paolo


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Disclaimer: all opinions, ideas and information included here are my own,and should not be intended to represent opinion or policy of my employer.
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