foldable map of Itokawa, a cook's tour of the sausage factory Options

[chuckclark]

Phil,
Can you remake the hi-contrast Itokawa cylindrical map with, let's say, twice the resolution of the existing?
I'm finding myself less than pleased with the results on the constant-scale natural boundary map in those areas where I have had to resample-up, sometimes by a factor of 5 in the x direction (under the chin).
Most of the rest of the surface is nearly 1:1, and of course at polar districts I'm reducing your cylindrical pixels a great deal.
I won't need latitudes and longitudes.
By the way, your touch on setting the high contrast is just right (mid-tones, darks and lights all hold up in both Photoshop warping and in printing); my one attempt went blotchy.
Thanks. Hope that's a doable request so near to LPSC.

[Phil Stooke]

Hi Chuck - I just emailed it to you.

Phil

[chuckclark]

Okay. Three-fourths of the way put together. Here is a montage of typical activities when assembling.
Far left: I'm using the Scotch tape method, little pieces.
Left: applying tape.
Right: adding seam slices at an "ear," the same one I had to fiddle with earlier, after the test fold-up. I'm optimistic the ear is going to go together alright.
Far right: marking the tabs template with the extra ear seam slices.

I'll update the tabs template after I get all through with the assembly.
More later.

photo credit: Sara Adkins Studio / C. Clark

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[nprev]

I am always amazed & deeply impressed by people who have the talent and dedication to accomplish things like this.

You go, Chuck.

[chuckclark]

I am always amazed & deeply impressed by people who have the talent and dedication to accomplish things like this.

You go, Chuck.

Thank you, nprev. nice to be appreciated.
My little project is self-supported -- it's grown (and mightily so, I might add) out of an apprentice problem I'd been given a long time ago, when I chose architect as my job.

We all have our motivations; this, to quote out of context my mentor who gave me this problem, "is my best bid for immortality." (added emphasis.) In the meantime, we all need to live and eat.

Let me know if you happen across a well-heeled space enthusiast seeking to inspire the public with a low-risk hi-reward cartographic innovation -- constant-scale natural boundary mapping, an orphan idea if there ever was.

While those blockbuster Hi-risk high-reward projects hog the limelight, I'm puttering along in my basement lab, using renaissance-era tools and techniques to fiddle with space-age discoveries. Well, okay, and eighteenth century innovation, the spring-loaded scissors.

I justify this project because architects are required by law to continue education -- and what better educates than a better look at the planet -- but that excuse gets slimmer as CSNB enters its third decade of focused activity. Doesn't help, that each new subject takes me farther from Earth.

Hmmm . . . Have you noticed that the new Enceladus global geology map looks to be promising raw material for a CSNB map . . .

And, not to digress overly, but I speculate that a spin-off application of CSNB to molecular mapping might be useful for addressing real world problems here on Earth. Not to mention that molecules are unchanged throughout the universe and time, so a way to map them into peculiar but eternal shapes, comparable (overlayable) as we architects compare floor plans ought to useful for basic science, shouldn't it? And then, you have the fun of cutting them out and folding them up . . . I'm just sayin'.

It's upstream on this post, but I'll mention it here again, thanks to JAXA for contributing the model used to make this CSNB Itokawa map.

Here is the folding sequence so far, maybe the better part of an hour counting extra time to keep track of seam slices:
photo credit Sara Adkins Studio / C. Clark

I'll post some group photos of the model, the test fold-up, the current current fold-up; then back to taping . . .

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[chuckclark]

Here's the group photo.

On the plastic model, the orange region marks the district that gave me the most trouble in the basic layout. In the simple, "unpeeled banana" layout (where each branch of the map is nearly the same length and breadth) I could not eliminate district overlaps. The ad hoc solution was to append the "orange" district onto the end of another section of the "peel" (orange arrows). That's why the map has unbalanced branches. It also makes the folding a little trickier because you've got to connect this district out of sequence from a simple, end-to-end assembly.

The orange district also contains the area discussed above, where I could not unscramble the cylindrically projected map.

The white line around the throat of the plastic model identifies Itokawa's primary valley line; it will become the boundary for a map which organizes and presents Itokawa's surface as two hill districts. (The current map presents the surface as basins, or, to use Maxwell's 1875 term, "dales.")

Another failure of accuracy: note the big rock at 12:00 o'clock on the top right plastic model. I had thought that my map would be able to capture this bulge on the assembled form, but it doesn't. I ought to have caught that earlier -- as I did with the ear -- I could have fixed it. Good thing nobody's paying for this map.

Same photo credit: Sara Adkins Studio / C.Clark

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[chuckclark]

Here's the last taping and folding sequence. The middle panels are marking the template for more seam slices at the ears (top) and at the nose (bottom). I'll reissue the main map with tabs and seam slices.
Note the small tool -- a length of piano wire with a loop at the end, a substitute for too-large fingers -- I'm using to apply back pressure for the tape to stick.


And here's the final model sequence. It's not a stunning success:

along the lower spine in particular, as well near several hinge-points, there are gaps; these, I think, are artifacts of the hyper-detailed model. This well-detailed surface is a wonderful part of the JAXA model, but the many rocks peppering the surface made it difficult to trace boundaries precisely. I'd have done better with a special-purpose model that smoothed out this scale of relief.

the big "hindquarter" rock (mentioned above) is not expressed;

extensive use of tape is overpowering the thin paper's ability to hold its shape, especially around the neck. This happened with Ida, too, so perhaps a couple of internal ribs are needed for Itokawa, too. Then again, Itokawa is perhaps an elementary representative of a class of objects (objects with concave curves, let's say, which would include Kleopatra) that may be foldable only in theory or in computer simulations. More complex members of this class would be things with holes, such as crania here's a few examples of CSNB-mapped crania (Very difficult to fold these things up.)

On the plus side, my fix of the unexpressed ear worked -- happy to learn how to go back in and refine the map edge -- although it's tiny size was almost too small to tape.

Overall, the starting map-size of 11x17 is too small for the taping method. I'll have to try Emily's cardstock-and-glue approach.

So, let's throw this tour wide-open -- anyone out there giving it a try? Post your folding results here!

Same photo credits: Sara Adkins Studio / C.Clark

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[chuckclark]

And to wrap up the tour -- everybody say cheese -- here's the group photo:
Odd how the test map holds its shape better than the final.

I'll have some slightly larger maps (12x18 super-tabloid) at LPSC
Gotta run. I need to make the valley-bound Itokawa map -- the map bounded by the white line on the plastic model -- in time for Thursday's poster session . . .

Same photo credit: Sara Adkins Studio / C.Clark

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[chuckclark]

And here's a beta version of conference handout.
Not sure if I'll be able, on the model, to sketch the boundary systems that'll make the two maps.
The Valley map isn't far enough along to paste in yet.
Oh, and I used the wrong cylindrical map; the orange "troublespot" (see above) shouldn't be marked.
Plus, this image will get some adjustments to the model levels for best printing results.

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[chuckclark]

So, on to the valley-bound map. This map organizes Itokawa's surface into districts of hills. (the earlier one organized the surface into districts of basins.)

Unlike Eros, Ida, Phobos and Deimos, Itokawa has a more complex valley-tree. E, I, P, & D. all resolved their valley lines as single lines, no branches. But Itokawa's valley system is difficult to prune to a single line.

So, a poll, unfair perhaps, because the maps are incomplete, but of A or B, which do you prefer for a general purpose map?
A is more compact. The branches marked 10, 11, & 17 have been pruned away.
B gives more articulation to the various hill districts of the head.
Both A & B have considerable size distortion on the body section, but far less than in a standard cylindrical map. (It'd be interesting to quantify and compare precisely how much the two systems differ -- constant-scale natural boundary vs simple cylindrical. Hmm. Wonder how to do that . . .)

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[chuckclark]

And this is how the Valley "A" map looks.
That's the body on the left, and the head on the right.
See above for the model photo with the bright white line -- that's the edge of this map (less the pruned branches).

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[Phil Stooke]

Nic, Chuck! See you in Houston.

Phil

[chuckclark]

Oh, forgot to say, I didn't try to unscramble the trouble spot, so the valley-bound map is a straight cut-and-paste off of Phil's cylindrical map.
And, now that I think to comment on it, this valley-bound map will fold up into something that will look like an apple turnover, if the earlier valley-bound maps (of Phobos, Deimos, Eros and Ida) are any guide. I won't start putting one together until sometime tomorrow.

[chuckclark]

Well, several misalignments in the graticles at the folding seams, and one loss of constant scale at the edge -- my pen must have slipped or some other by-hand error. A seam slice into the map between points f & j on the body side was needed to match things up.
This shows both valley-bound versions A and B folded up. "A" has the image on it, "B" is the gridded object.
Note that the objects do not look like the asteroid. That's because the boundary tree is very short and not well spread across the object. Still folds up, though. Odd, no?

Visit My Website for the polished image of the handout for next week's LPSC 41.

Here also is a comparison of the ridge-bound map with some JAXA shots of the asteroid; [EDIT] that's the paper model on the top, the photos of the actual asteroid on the bottom.

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[chuckclark]

Here's the ridge-bound constant-scale natural boundary map of Itokawa marked with tabs and seam slices. The areas where the slices are very close together are the two "ears" on the otter's right-hand side.

If you are daring enough to try cutting and folding this map, don't use this a print of this image itself -- it is only a snapshot of a print of the map; it is not flat on a table. (Dumb of me not to produce this the accurate way, in the Photoshop file itself.) Scroll up and download the map; use this image as a guide for where to put tabs and seam slices.

Here also is the less-compact version of the valley-bound map pictured above in outline.

Oh, as far as Enceladus geology goes, I spent some time at the conference transferring the latest geology info onto a grapefruit, and onto a minneola, which I cut and peeled into a map. That old saw about how making a map is like unpeeling an orange is not so good -- oranges don't peel very easily; neither do grapefruits. It's more like unpeeling a minneola:
http://rightbasicbuilding.com/enceladus-first-globe-ever/

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