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Unmanned Spaceflight.com _ Phoenix _ The Peter Pan

Posted by: jamescanvin Jun 24 2008, 11:18 PM

I've been struggling all evening, to manipulate the full size version on my poor old computer.

Now it's getting late, so it'll have to wait. In the meantime here is a lower resolution (about 1/4) first draft.



I believe that with this done that is full mission success for SSI. Congrats Mark!

James

Posted by: tedstryk Jun 25 2008, 01:49 AM

Beautiful! It is amazing to see the full site. I can't wait until the PDS release, when I can go to work on the horizon.

Posted by: glennwsmith Jun 25 2008, 02:05 AM

Very nice work James. And this wouldn't look out of place on the cover of a science fiction paperback from 50 years ago!

Posted by: Astro0 Jun 25 2008, 07:35 AM

Wow James!
Here's your image as the coolest of cool Polar_Polar Pans. A Polar Peter Pan perhaps! smile.gif
Can't wait until we see this filled in....extra cool!


Astro0

Posted by: Skyrunner Jun 25 2008, 09:30 AM

Well done James (and well done Mark)! This is one of the things we have been waiting for. When we get the full res I'm, probably going to print it on a polymer film and make a real wallpaper out of it for the side wall of my study.

Thanks guys pancam.gif

Posted by: Doc Jun 25 2008, 10:22 AM

Absolutely stunning! blink.gif blink.gif blink.gif
Compliments to jamescanvin and congratulations to the SSI team and 3 cheers for Peter Smith for making this all possible.

Posted by: tedstryk Jun 25 2008, 02:55 PM

Do they plan to fill in the lower tiers?

Posted by: ugordan Jun 25 2008, 02:57 PM

I don't see why not. This is not the actual complete pan, yet.

Posted by: centsworth_II Jun 25 2008, 03:00 PM

QUOTE (tedstryk @ Jun 25 2008, 09:55 AM) *
Do they plan to fill in the lower tiers?


"Phoenix camera team leader Mark Lemmon cautioned me that the mission success panorama isn't really quite done.... they plan on filling in the terrain nearest the lander, which includes the robotic arm's workspace".http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00001522/

Posted by: ElkGroveDan Jun 25 2008, 03:17 PM

QUOTE (Astro0 @ Jun 24 2008, 11:35 PM) *
Here's your image as the coolest of cool Polar_Polar Pans. A Polar Peter Pan perhaps! smile.gif

That has got to be the cleanest of all the polar pans we've done around here. I could gaze at that all day.

Posted by: fredk Jun 25 2008, 03:28 PM

Stunning job, guys. There's something eerie about that disembodied robotic arm floating there, too. ohmy.gif

Posted by: Cargo Cult Jun 25 2008, 05:38 PM

A random, meaningless point on some near-featureless, empty, frozen northern plains on an entirely uninhabited planet - which has now become the centre of the universe for a vast, varied team of people. Fantastic!

(It reminds me a little of the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degree_Confluence_Project - precise locations you'd never give a second glance gaining some strange significance through external factors. This odd little spot on Mars, seemingly identical to its surroundings for many, many kilometres, is now important. And will be photographed, prodded, dissected and analysed, because everywhere is interesting.)




Posted by: tedstryk Jun 25 2008, 07:50 PM

I played around with the hills a bit. Considering the quality of the data, they are remarkably featureless.


Posted by: ugordan Jun 25 2008, 07:53 PM

Not surprising considering flatfield noise, jpeg compression artifacts and plain dust in the air.

Posted by: tedstryk Jun 25 2008, 08:40 PM

It is just that hills at other landing sites were so much rockier, even in poor quality imaging.

Posted by: ugordan Jun 25 2008, 08:43 PM

That's probably because these are more distant than say the Pathfinder Twin Peaks.

Posted by: tedstryk Jun 25 2008, 09:31 PM

QUOTE (ugordan @ Jun 25 2008, 08:43 PM) *
That's probably because these are more distant than say the Pathfinder Twin Peaks.


That's quite possible. I really don't know the scale. It will be interesting to see once better quality imaging is down.

Posted by: fredk Jun 25 2008, 10:00 PM

I'm not sure about Twin Peaks, but the low hills in tedstryk's post above are about 20 km to the SSW. There's a large crater a similar distance to the SW of the Columbia Hills - this shot shows it:
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/2/p/606/2P180161224EFFAEM9P2629L6M1.JPG
Of course its visibility varies a lot with dust levels. Here's a more recent winter view with clear air:
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/2/p/1532/2P262366320EFFAY00P2264L7M1.JPG

Posted by: jamescanvin Jun 25 2008, 10:50 PM

Another draft. I added in the arm work volume mosaic from the first week, unfortunately they don't quite overlap.

Also available at twice the resolution compared to yesterdays (half of full) smile.gif

http://www.nivnac.co.uk/mer/index.php?title=phoenix-sols-3-to-28-r1bc-92-pointings&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

Enjoy.

James

Posted by: Astro0 Jun 26 2008, 03:00 AM

And James' updated panorama deserves another polar projection.


Astro0

Posted by: MichaelT Jun 26 2008, 02:46 PM

Many thanks for the great work!

Michael

Posted by: Ant103 Jun 26 2008, 03:00 PM

Amazing works James and other. Really appreciate it smile.gif.
James : how do you do to take the time to do this pictures? You are really productive this time.

Posted by: jamescanvin Jun 29 2008, 05:51 PM

Version updated to sol 32, it's already out of date with all the sol 33 images. But at least it's now at full resolution. smile.gif

http://www.nivnac.co.uk/mer/index.php/phoenix-sols-3-to-32-r1bc-103-pointings

James

Posted by: Paul Fjeld Jun 29 2008, 08:28 PM

Really nice job! Yah - SOL 33 gives you that steenkeen 2 degrees!

Paul

Posted by: punkboi Jun 30 2008, 01:25 AM

Awesome work, James! Can't wait to see what the final panorama will look like! biggrin.gif

Posted by: Astro0 Jun 30 2008, 03:20 AM

James' pan as a polar, and I vote it as a new 'emoticon'! SMILE smile.gif


Astro0

Posted by: fredk Jun 30 2008, 04:52 PM

Or how about as a "don't panic" emoticon? There's something oddly familiar about that polar image... (Or perhaps just something odd about me...) laugh.gif


Posted by: 3488 Jul 1 2008, 01:16 PM

Great imagery James Canvin & Astro0.

Wonder how they'll compare to the official ones that will be released by NASA? My own thoughts are that the first 360 pans should have been the priority for the first few sols, before unstowing the arm & digging. That arm is quite an intrusion.

Can I ask, what software was used & is it expensive?

Thank you.

Andrew Brown.

Posted by: BrianL Jul 1 2008, 02:25 PM

The arm adds a certain je ne sais quoi for me. In retrospect, maybe the first Spirit panorama should have had the arm outstretched and pointing toward the Columbia Hills a la Babe Ruth, as if to say, "There. That's where we're going". biggrin.gif

Happy Canada Day everyone!

Brian

Posted by: jamescanvin Jul 1 2008, 03:19 PM

QUOTE (3488 @ Jul 1 2008, 02:16 PM) *
Great imagery James Canvin & Astro0.


Thanks.

QUOTE (3488 @ Jul 1 2008, 02:16 PM) *
My own thoughts are that the first 360 pans should have been the priority for the first few sols, before unstowing the arm & digging. That arm is quite an intrusion.


Having the arm moving about is not too much of a problem. They have already retaken a few of the images in the near field when the arm was in the way the first time.

QUOTE (3488 @ Jul 1 2008, 02:16 PM) *
Can I ask, what software was used & is it expensive?


I use Hugin to stitch the images (free open source smile.gif ) and usually the GIMP to post-process (touch up saturation/brightness etc, add credits, save as jpg, etc.) (free open source smile.gif ) However for really big images like full resolution 360 degree pans the GIMP really struggles and I then use Photoshop which can handle these much better.

All the matching between frames is done using a program I have written myself from scratch which while has not cost me anything in monetary terms has cost me more time than I even want to think about over the years!

James

Posted by: jmknapp Jul 1 2008, 03:30 PM

QUOTE (jamescanvin @ Jul 1 2008, 11:19 AM) *
However for really big images like full resolution 360 degree pans the GIMP really struggles and I then use Photoshop which can handle these much better.


I was trying to manipulate some large images (planet texture maps 21k pixels wide) & the ImageMagick library on a RAM-challenged old Linux box was just crashing. There's a JPEG2000 format or something which is supposed to facilitate handling large images at differing crops and resolution, but I haven't looked into that. A simple (although slow) stopgap was to create a much bigger swap file so there was enough virtual memory, & it eventually chugs through (in that case splitting the big file up into tiles).

Posted by: 3488 Jul 2 2008, 12:31 PM

( unnecessary full quote removed )

Thank you very much for your answers James. Very much appreciated. I must try & few more things myself. I will be keeping an eye out for further interesting images.

( unnecessary off topic question removed )

Andrew Brown.

Posted by: pioneer Jul 2 2008, 09:37 PM

Do they plan to send back a panorama composed of lossless images like they did with Pathfinder later in that mission?

Posted by: djellison Jul 2 2008, 10:13 PM

There is a plan is to conduct a lower compression, more filters, less down-sampling pan as I understand it ( called the Re-Peter Pan ) Of course, with Pathfinder, it had 1/16th the resolution to contend with.

Doug

Posted by: 3488 Jul 2 2008, 11:20 PM

Hi Doug,

That is going to take some time & a huge number of frames. Is there enough time left in the Primary Mission to accomplish that?

What would be interesting would be a horizon pan at around the time of the Midnight Sun, do determine atmospheric light scattering, etc.

Andrew Brown.

Posted by: Astro0 Jul 3 2008, 01:21 AM

A crude attempt at filling in the deck and panels using the ground-based test images.
The real thing should be spectacular!


Astro0

Posted by: Juramike Jul 3 2008, 02:18 AM

WOW! Beautiful job, Astro0!

Posted by: jamescanvin Jul 3 2008, 07:10 AM

Great job Astro - I'm still working on getting the deck pan added to The Peter Pan

Doug - Maybe I'm wrong but I thought the name Re-Peter Pan was just applied to the the repeated bits of Peter Pan where there were dropouts in the data the first time around.

Andrew - yes it will take quite a long time - it depends just how much compression and how many filters are used - but I could imagine the horizon pan being done by the end of the primary mission.

Posted by: djellison Jul 3 2008, 07:35 AM

QUOTE (jamescanvin @ Jul 3 2008, 08:10 AM) *
Re-Peter Pan was just applied to the the repeated bits of Peter Pan where there were dropouts in the data the first time around.


Ahh- that makes more sense.

Doug

Posted by: jamescanvin Jul 6 2008, 10:00 PM

The full colour version is going to be tricky to pull off I think, however in the meantime here is a quick greyscale version. 144 images in this!

http://www.nivnac.co.uk/mer/index.php/phoenix-peter-pan-sols-13-to-40-r1bc-aam

Polar version

http://www.nivnac.co.uk/mer/index.php/phoenix-peter-pan-sols-13-to-40-r1bc-aam

Click image - quarter of full resolution

James

Posted by: ugordan Jul 6 2008, 10:02 PM

Awesome work, James!

Posted by: Ant103 Jul 6 2008, 11:04 PM

Agreed. It's great James smile.gif.

Posted by: punkboi Jul 7 2008, 05:41 AM

Well... As long as you eventually get the colored version completed, James...before the end of next week. J/k biggrin.gif

Good work on those greyscale images

Posted by: Tesheiner Jul 7 2008, 06:30 AM

James, you are a wizard!

Posted by: djellison Jul 7 2008, 07:03 PM

BBC's The Sky at Night did a great job - sent Chris Lintott out to Tuscon for a day or two and had a brilliant half hour program on BBC4 just now.

I noticed something in the background of an interview....



Notice anything cool? A nice big print out of an early chunk of the Peter Pan in there.

But it's not the NASA version - http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/images/press/S_016IFF_CYLTST11E1C_RAAAM2_newer.html - see, no black borders.

It's this one - http://www.nivnac.co.uk/mer/index.php/2008/06/11/phoenix-16-r1bc-6-pointings

It's JC's mosaic on the wall at PHX HQ.

Like an art insurance specialist - it's all about the border smile.gif A flick comparison for added 'Bloody hell, you're right'

There you go James - that's twice you've been on the Sky at Night now smile.gif




 

Posted by: jamescanvin Jul 7 2008, 07:58 PM

Pan on the wall at Phoenix HQ and on Sky at Night at the same time. Doesn't get much better than that! cool.gif

I notice that in the first shot from inside the HQ at the start of the program you can see it on the left on the other side of the room. Gives a bit of context to it's location.

James

Posted by: Cargo Cult Jul 8 2008, 07:21 PM

QUOTE (djellison @ Jul 7 2008, 09:03 PM) *
BBC's The Sky at Night did a great job - sent Chris Lintott out to Tuscon for a day or two and had a brilliant half hour program on BBC4 just now.

Here's http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00ch4p6 for anyone who missed it. Needs a British IP address to get around the geolocatory restrictions - I'm in Belgium, but know how to fake it. ;-)


Posted by: Oersted Jul 8 2008, 09:40 PM

QUOTE (djellison @ Jul 7 2008, 09:03 PM) *
It's JC's mosaic on the wall at PHX HQ.


And also in the latest issue of The Economist, afaik.

Posted by: jamescanvin Jul 8 2008, 10:17 PM

On their website at least, it's the official NASA version, not mine.

http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11662574

Posted by: Oersted Jul 9 2008, 12:27 PM

ah, ok.

Posted by: elakdawalla Jul 9 2008, 12:47 PM

Just chatted with Mark Lemmon -- he said that as of this morning he's declaring the Mission Success Pan to be complete (in terms of data acquisition). He said there's one or two things he'd like to go back and do, like get the part of Mars above MECA that was blocked by the arm, and maybe do some imaging with the arm in a position in the work volume like it was about to do some work, but the data bits are down for a full pan.

--Emily

Posted by: akuo Jul 9 2008, 12:53 PM

Are there plans to cover the area hidden behind the meteorology mast? Maybe with the RAC? :-P

I guess most of the area under the lander could be similarly imaged...

Posted by: jamescanvin Jul 9 2008, 01:01 PM

QUOTE (elakdawalla @ Jul 9 2008, 01:47 PM) *
Just chatted with Mark Lemmon -- he said that as of this morning he's declaring the Mission Success Pan to be complete (


Yep, a test version I made last night was only missing one image and I see that has now been taken and downlinked. Hooray!

James

Posted by: punkboi Jul 9 2008, 06:59 PM

Thanks for the info, Emily! Here's hoping I finally get to use that 8X10 frame I bought from Aaron Brothers, pretty soon biggrin.gif mars.gif

Posted by: MahFL Jul 10 2008, 11:48 AM

Can anyone enlighten me to which fairy tale this comes from ?

14E1-0: SSI 15F - Deadly Poppy Field

Thanks.


Posted by: MahFL Jul 10 2008, 11:50 AM

Any news on when they will image parts of the scene without any compression ?

Posted by: PFK Jul 10 2008, 11:55 AM

Wizard of Oz

Posted by: slinted Jul 10 2008, 11:58 AM

QUOTE (MahFL @ Jul 10 2008, 03:48 AM) *
Can anyone enlighten me to which fairy tale this comes from ?
14E1-0: SSI 15F - Deadly Poppy Field

I think that one is a nod to the http://www.americanliterature.com/Baum/TheWonderfulWizardofOz/9.html.

Posted by: ugordan Jul 10 2008, 11:59 AM

Disabling image compression is less of a benefit than full, but compressed frames would be. It would be similar bandwidth-wise, given a 4x compression ratio.

Posted by: fredk Jul 10 2008, 05:04 PM

We now have an unobstructed view of the crater rim on the horizon to the west, which had been partly blocked by the arm:
http://www.met.tamu.edu/mars/i/SS044EFF900109567_11E1EL1M1.jpg
(Of course that "obscuration" resulted in one of the signature images of Martian exploration! smile.gif )

Posted by: 3488 Jul 10 2008, 10:47 PM

Crop & 3 x enlargement of hills at Azm 278 deg Sol 44.

Is that a small impact crater at the bottom just right of centre at the bottom of this crop?



Also, are they boulders on the hills, if so there are more larger pieces on the hills than on the tundra plains that Phoenix is situated on.

Does anyone know what these hills are? I assume crater rims?

Colour crop of same hills from Ant103 superb colour image. There is a huge amount of talent on UMSF.


Andrew Brown.

Posted by: fredk Jul 11 2008, 12:29 AM

QUOTE (3488 @ Jul 10 2008, 10:47 PM) *
Does anyone know what these hills are? I assume crater rims?

Phil Stooke identified them as feature "C" in the maps http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=5249&view=findpost&p=118879 It looks like a crater from orbit.

Posted by: jamescanvin Jul 11 2008, 08:02 AM

Still got quite a bit of work to do on this. (My software was never designed to do deck pans, I've never attempted an MER one). But the rest of the view is too good to keep to myself, so here is the latest test version:

http://www.nivnac.co.uk/mer/index.php/phoenix-sols-13-to-43-r-1bc-aamp-r-abc-1

EDIT: Replaced with a better version

James


Posted by: Tesheiner Jul 11 2008, 10:07 AM

Wow!
cool.gif cool.gif cool.gif

Your's in polar view.


Posted by: jamescanvin Jul 11 2008, 10:31 AM

Nice one Tesheiner. I was hoping somebody would do one. smile.gif

I didn't have time before work this morning to do anything other than hit the upload button.

Cheers,

James

Posted by: TheChemist Jul 11 2008, 12:16 PM

Great view guys ! However, here it comes:
Stupid question of the day for the imaging gurus:
How difficult is it to make a rotatable polar view ?
I like the perspective of polar view images, but I find it impossible to grasp the entirety of the horizon without rotating the laptop or my head to pain-enduring positions. I've seen VR movies of normal 360 deg. panoramas posted in UMSF from time to time, and they were gorgeous smile.gif Can the same be done with polar view panoramas ?

PS. I know about rotating the panorama in image viewers, but this does not quite do the trick.

Posted by: jekbradbury Jul 11 2008, 02:51 PM

You mean something like this?

http://jekbradbury.googlepages.com/index.html

Move the mouse to rotate and click to toggle modes between full pan and zoomed in.

Posted by: TheChemist Jul 11 2008, 04:25 PM

Fantastic, this is exactly what I was talking about !
Jekbradbury, a million thank you !

I am humbled by the enormous amount of ingenuity in this forum. I am officially spoiled smile.gif

Posted by: punkboi Jul 11 2008, 07:26 PM

Awesome work, guys! Can't wait to see the next version of the panorama, James cool.gif

Posted by: Ant103 Jul 11 2008, 10:49 PM

Great panoramic James smile.gif. Very impatient to see the final version wink.gif.

Posted by: punkboi Jul 12 2008, 02:51 AM

This is the part of the panorama that I'm gonna crop for that 8X10... biggrin.gif

The only qualm I have with the mosaic is that a part of the robotic arm scoop can be seen next to the solar panel to its right (shown in that white bracket). I can Photoshop it out myself...but I'll just wait to see what other changes you make to the Pan in subsequent versions cool.gif

 

Posted by: DDAVIS Jul 12 2008, 04:52 AM

'I'll just wait to see what other changes you make to the Pan in subsequent versions '

Here is what I could fill in from earlier photography which can be pasted over the Canvin version of the color pan. Alas, the earlier pan also had the arm blocking part of the view. I made a rough color match of the earlier grayscale images without any attempt to recolor rocks, etc. I hope the plans to re shoot those parts needed to provide a clear panorama bear fruit!

Don


Posted by: punkboi Jul 12 2008, 08:02 AM

Photohopped the robotic arm scoop out in this pic

 

Posted by: jamescanvin Jul 12 2008, 09:13 AM

Yes I noticed that. Remember that these are all quickly thrown together test versions I'll cut out some bits of arm (there are others) for the final version. They have retaken the bit with that has the arm in (see post 60), but I'm inclined to leave it in my version.

Posted by: 3488 Jul 12 2008, 04:55 PM

Can I say an enormous thank you to everyone in this thread who has posted work of the utmost professionalism, that even NASA themselves are going to find extremely difficult to usurp.

You guys bridge the gap between Science & Art very effectively & put certain 'artists' to shame who think unmade beds or a flashing light is art. The work you guys do is worth vastly more & are part of the long term investment of our species.

It would be great James Canvin for two versions of your remarkable pan. One with the arm in place & one with no arm, showing the complete Martian Landscape in Scandia Colles without any obstructions.

Also the Sky @ Night was repeated at lunchtime today & yes your work was on display at Mission Control.

This is most certainly an interesting site, both scientifically & visually. I for one will study the pans intently.

BTW where in the UK are you from James? It is a great website you have there James.

I have put in requests for midnight sun observations, perhaps a timelapse movie of the sun swooping low over the northern horizon, the first ever such observation from another planet, also due east, west & south observations on another sol but at the same time, to get a differing illumination on the landscape. Also is not Holy Cow supposed to be imaged with illumination from the midnight sun at some point?

James, I wonder what you could produce from said observations? No doubt, would be mind blowing.

Andrew Brown.

Posted by: 3488 Jul 12 2008, 05:07 PM

QUOTE (fredk @ Jul 11 2008, 01:29 AM) *
Phil Stooke identified them as feature "C" in the maps http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=5249&view=findpost&p=118879 It looks like a crater from orbit.


Thank you very much Fred for your answer & to Phil Stooke for taking the time & trouble to pinning down what we are looking at.

That crater appears to have an interesting polygonal floor. To me it looks more like a Pingo than an impact crater, though it's size appears too large for a pingo, unless they can grow much larger under the 37.8 % gravity?

Please keep up the great & very important work everyone.

Andrew Brown.

Posted by: jamescanvin Jul 12 2008, 09:21 PM

My final version. Unless I do one with the arm removed, personally I'd rather see someone put the missing part of the arm in!

Full resolution, touched up and with artificial sky.

http://www.nivnac.co.uk/mer/index.php/peter_pan

James

Posted by: Ant103 Jul 13 2008, 01:04 PM

Hi James,

Do you have trouble with your website. I'm unable to view your panorama, and when I go to your blog, I see a page without CSS forming and no images. It's me or … ?
I really want to see your panoramic picture smile.gif.

Posted by: jekbradbury Jul 13 2008, 02:36 PM

Here is a new version of my spinning polar pan applet:

http://jekbradbury.googlepages.com/index.html

Click to zoom

Posted by: jamescanvin Jul 14 2008, 08:24 AM

To those of you that have had problems accessing my site - just try again.

I'm on a cheap host and have had a lot of visitors in the last 48 hours. I think the problems really started when a direct link to the large jpg itself was on the front page of digg for a time yesterday. ohmy.gif I'm just glad that it didn't coincide with the time it was on the front page of MSNBC, which brought over 25000 hits in just 5-6 hours on Saturday.

James

Posted by: jamescanvin Jul 14 2008, 04:31 PM

Well it made my computer think for a while but in the end it has managed to churn out a huge polar version of the Peter Pan.

http://www.nivnac.co.uk/mer/index.php/polar_peter_pan

(Smaller versions available as well smile.gif)

Posted by: Oersted Jul 14 2008, 05:24 PM

Wonderful panorama, woohoo!

A few aesthetic comments:

- we really need that arm to extend out to the edge of the image, blotting out a bit of fake sky is no issue.

- I also definitely vote for the panorama to keep the arm. It is true that it obscures a tiny bit of the horizon, but let's face it: one bit of this landscape is pretty much like any other bit, so not much harm is done. The arm is very necessary to include in the pan, it is after all the main instrument of the mission!

- the area immediately around the arm needs to be brightened a tiny bit (obvious from the thumbnail). There's also another splotch near the middle that seems a bit too dark.

Posted by: Oersted Jul 14 2008, 06:47 PM

Woohoo again! - I just noticed you made mainstream internet media James:

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/07/11/1195385.aspx

Cosmic Log by Alan Boyle is one of my favourite science blogs. Great to see the exposure for you and for UMSF and Emily as well.

Posted by: jamescanvin Jul 14 2008, 07:14 PM

Yeah, we talked about that on the http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=5235&view=findpost&p=120476. I'm very proud that it was actually the lead image on the front page of a major news site for most of Saturday.

And it was great exposure for all mentioned, I've had tens of thousands of hits and many positive comments. smile.gif

Posted by: punkboi Jul 14 2008, 07:22 PM

Thanks for work, James. This image is now hangin' on my wall... smile.gif




 

Posted by: ugordan Jul 14 2008, 08:14 PM

Once again, outstanding work, James!

I hope you don't mind me tweaking your colors very slightly:
http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/9/14/1431389/peter_pan_f10_half_tweak.jpg

Posted by: Juramike Jul 17 2008, 12:03 PM

James Canvin's polar projection overlaid on a false color HiRISE image:





Features at the 5 m distance ring from the lander mast have been coordinated.

It is interesting is that by comparing to wider range HiRISE false color views (Sol 3 and onwards, Post 47, link http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=5175&view=findpost&p=116092), it indicates that most of what we are seeing (at least out to 20 m, which is close to the visible horizon in the mosaics) at the surface has been slightly altered by the lander blast. In most of the visible fore- and mid-ground, the "poofy dust" has been blasted.

-Mike

Posted by: Juramike Jul 18 2008, 03:42 AM

From the HiRISE images it appears that the local terrain around Phoenix has been significantly darkened. I was curious how to correct the view for a "pre-landing" (read pre-retro blast) view.

I used the IRB[=RGB] images hosted on Emily's blog (http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00001557/) to calculate the darkening effect in the local area around Phoenix.

I selected two representative areas in the HiRISE images, one near the Phoenix spacecraft (inside the blast zone), the other beyond the obvious blast zone in the false color image. Both areas needed to be fairly uniform (and easy to find) in the images. They correspond to the central section of the smaller polygons.



Next, I used the selected zone Histogram function in Photoshop to find the average brightness values (on a 0-256 unit scale) of the pixels inside the representative zones for each channel image. Note that the differences in the I[R] and B[BG] channels are within the standard deviation of the values.



Figuring the difference as a function of the measured brightness, I *think* this is how to correct the view of the Phoenix mosaic to the pre-landing colors
These numbers are in reference to the HiRISE instrument detector response in the IRB channels, not to the Phoenix imaging camera!




To correct the Phoenix surface mosaic to pre-landing colors:
  • Add 5% to the IR brightness
  • Add 11% to the Red brightness
  • Add 15% to the Blue-Green brightness


-Mike

Posted by: Ant103 Jul 19 2008, 03:37 PM

Hi,

From the great James Canvin's Peter Pan, Ive added an full synthetic sky to show the sun in approximative place at 12:00 of the landing site, with its elevation at this season. And this is for showing the way martian sky could be. Hope you will like it, in particulary James smile.gif.

Without clouds
http://www.db-prods.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/jamescanvin-peter_pan-artificialfullsky-v2-webrowse.jpg
Hires 6 Mo : http://www.db-prods.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/jamescanvin-peter_pan-artificialfullsky-v2-web.jpg

And with clouds
http://www.db-prods.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/jamescanvin-peter_pan-artificialfullsky-v2-clouds-webrowse.jpg
Hires 6 Mo : http://www.db-prods.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/jamescanvin-peter_pan-artificialfullsky-v2-clouds-web.jpg

Posted by: jamescanvin Jul 19 2008, 03:54 PM

Nice. smile.gif

I don't understand the sun position though, wouldn't it be due south at 12:00?

James

Posted by: Ant103 Jul 19 2008, 04:01 PM

Yes, but, honnestly, I've placed it by seeing shadows and reflection on the deck. But, is it strongly possible that I've made mistakes.

Posted by: 3488 Jul 19 2008, 04:15 PM

QUOTE (Ant103 @ Jul 19 2008, 05:01 PM) *
Yes, but, honnestly, I've placed it by seeing shadows and reflection on the deck. But, is it strongly possible that I've made mistakes.


Hi guys, great images as always.

Can I help by posting these charts I've made on Reshift of the Phoenix Landing site on the Solstice on Sol 30?

Midsol Sol 30.


Midnight Sun Sol 30 / 31.


Andrew Brown.

Posted by: jamescanvin Jul 19 2008, 04:27 PM

Ah, OK, thanks Ant, looks good whatever time of day it is. smile.gif (mid afternoon I think wink.gif)

Posted by: Stu Jul 19 2008, 04:28 PM

QUOTE (Ant103 @ Jul 19 2008, 05:01 PM) *
Yes, but, honnestly, I've placed it by seeing shadows and reflection on the deck. But, is it strongly possible that I've made mistakes.


Don't worry about it smile.gif I know mega-accurate images are important, and your Sun position might well be "off", but sometimes you just have to push "accurate" aside for the sake of a shamelessly dramatic and attractive image that captures the mood and spirt of a scene and evokes a sense of wonder. Your image does that. smile.gif

Stu (uncrowned King of unnecessary lens flare and over-the-top lighting effects!! laugh.gif )

Posted by: djellison Jul 19 2008, 04:36 PM

QTVR time smile.gif




 jc_ant_QTVR.mov ( 825.45K ) : 538
 

Posted by: Ant103 Jul 19 2008, 04:52 PM

Thanks Stu smile.gif

Doug : great QTVR. I don't know how to do it but I really appreciate it smile.gif.

Posted by: Skyrunner Jul 19 2008, 06:24 PM

QUOTE (djellison @ Jul 19 2008, 06:36 PM) *
QTVR time smile.gif

Doug, magnificent! That MET-mast realy comes to live.

Posted by: jekbradbury Jul 23 2008, 08:26 PM

Here is The Peter Pan projected to a Vertical Projection, suitable for overlay on top of HiRISE images or simply for a birds-eye view:


Posted by: jamescanvin Jul 23 2008, 08:40 PM

Nice. smile.gif

Posted by: BrianL Jul 23 2008, 09:00 PM

Hmm, from that perspective Damocles might be a better name for the lander. smile.gif


Posted by: PDP8E Jul 24 2008, 02:25 AM

QUOTE (djellison @ Jul 19 2008, 11:36 AM) *
QTVR time smile.gif


DOUG!

you're killing me!

Fabulous! Thanks

Cheers

Posted by: alan Jul 24 2008, 03:39 AM

QUOTE (jekbradbury @ Jul 23 2008, 03:26 PM) *
Here is The Peter Pan projected to a Vertical Projection, suitable for overlay on top of HiRISE images or simply for a birds-eye view:

Upsidedown?
I think north is at the bottom of that image.

Posted by: jmjawors Jul 24 2008, 05:37 AM

Phoenix appears to be under attack by some sort of giant claw! ohmy.gif wink.gif

Awesome perspective... what an amazing image (all of them).

Posted by: punkboi Jul 31 2008, 06:46 PM

NASA TV showed this image of the Panorama. If that's the official, 'complete' version... Then I guess I don't have to worry about replacing the 8X10 I made from the Pan that James did. wink.gif

 

Posted by: DDAVIS Aug 5 2008, 04:45 AM

[quote name='punkboi' date='Jul 31 2008, 06:46 PM' post='121899']
NASA TV showed this image of the Panorama.

Whish has been released as PIA11007

But at low resolution. Will a larger resolution version be released?

Don

Posted by: Paul Fjeld Aug 6 2008, 02:26 AM

I think http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/images.php?gID=17106&cID=193 gets you to the press release page at the LPL site and you can select for download the 61MB version on the right

Posted by: ugordan Aug 6 2008, 01:25 PM

Looks to me that 61 MB version is magnified and it's not higher resolution than the "medium" res, 24 MB view since the panorama was taken in 2x2 binned mode.

Posted by: Paul Fjeld Aug 6 2008, 01:30 PM

Interesting. Why would they up-rez the thing?

Posted by: jamescanvin Aug 6 2008, 01:36 PM

Err, no. The green/blue were 2x2 binned but the red was at full resolution. (except for the deck which really was down sampled but their version doesn't include that anyway)

Hence why mine has similar dimensions to their large version. 26642 vs 26720 pixels for the full 360

Posted by: ugordan Aug 6 2008, 01:49 PM

QUOTE (jamescanvin @ Aug 6 2008, 03:36 PM) *
Err, no. The green/blue were 2x2 binned but the red was at full resolution.

Not true. All 3 filters were taken in 2x2 binned mode with the additional red frame (far red L1/R1) at full res, the one you're talking about. I'm not seeing the full res view used in the official version. You be the judge if this looks like a full res view in terms of crispness (of the red channel at least):


using the red channel from this image: http://www.met.tamu.edu/mars/i/SS015EFF897559394_11E1CR1M1.jpg
or rather this one: http://www.met.tamu.edu/mars/i/SS015EDN897559215_11E18RAM1.jpg

Counterintuitively, the binned frames are actually more blurry than full frames, one would not expect that given that binned frames depend less on camera point spread function. It's certainly not the case with say Cassini or MESSENGER binned imagery.

Posted by: jamescanvin Aug 6 2008, 02:36 PM

QUOTE (jamescanvin @ Aug 6 2008, 02:36 PM) *
Err, no. The green/blue were 2x2 binned but the red was at full resolution.

QUOTE (ugordan @ Aug 6 2008, 02:49 PM) *
Not true.

Well I would argue that that it was a true statement - I just omitted (forgot) the other red channel. smile.gif

When you originally posted I only let the large file load as far at the met mast and that looked good to my quick glance but looking at some of the terrain does indeed show that a lot of detail has been lost compared to my version. How odd...

Posted by: fredk Aug 6 2008, 03:56 PM

QUOTE (ugordan @ Aug 6 2008, 02:49 PM) *
Counterintuitively, the binned frames are actually more blurry than full frames

I've wondered about that too. My guess was that the binned frames used a more lossy compression than the full frames. The SSI site talks about jpeg and Rice compression. The binned frames don't look like they're heavily jpeged, and I thought Rice was lossless, but a simple modification of Rice would effectively act like a spatial low-pass filter on the images, if I'm correct. That could explain what we're seeing.

Posted by: elakdawalla Aug 6 2008, 10:44 PM

Mark Lemmon clears up some of this...the short version is, no, you're not crazy, the binned images really are blurrier.

QUOTE
First, the binned images should look sharper (more aliased) than full-res images. They do not. There are a handful of bugs in SSI flight software, too small to get attention away from other aspects of the mission, large enough to annoy. In this case, it was discovered in December that the implementation of the binning makes it act as a type of low pass filter. In the absence of compression, that error is reversible. The compression makes it only partly reversible. The fix is simple, but that is not a major factor--replacing FSW is intrinsically complex. For reference, we had a patch to replace our auto-exposure algorithm in January. RAC was just allowed to use auto-exposure for the first time in flight a couple sols ago; SSI is still working on it. We've used manual exposures all mission long. That's despite the fact that we used auto-expose without issue in our readiness tests.

Second, there are more elements to putting the pan together than I can speak to. One element that I can, is that I never had time to use and check the upconversion routine (recovers full res from the binned images quite well) on all 300-some binned frames, and some form of simply scaling the images up was used instead, to the best of my knowledge. Phoenix is amazingly complex to operate, and the team is simply not big enough to be able to operate it well and do all the processing we would like. Doing the best job we can with the images is something that has to be deferred.

Third, I would expect a better version of same pan (better includes filling in the black spaces). That won't come until the ops pace has eased, certainly not until well after the disruptions of the next few weeks. In addition, the HEA pan has no binning, less compression in all filters, and little compression in stereo filters.


Hope that clears things up!

Emily

Posted by: Ant103 Aug 11 2008, 03:59 PM

Hi,

I recently made a James Canvin's Peter Pan version for Stellarium. Very helpfull to see where is the sun and view when it will "touch" the ground smile.gif.
http://www.db-prods.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/phoenixlandingsite.zip
Installation procedure are described in the read-me wink.gif.

And screens :
http://www.db-prods.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/stellarium-phoenix.png

Today midnight sun wink.gif
http://www.db-prods.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/stellarium-midnightsun-phoenix.png

Hope you will like it (if you are user of Stellarium)

Posted by: Hungry4info Aug 11 2008, 05:11 PM

That's really neat! I've used Stellarium before, it's a nice program. Is there any way to change the colour of the atmosphere?

Posted by: Reckless Aug 11 2008, 09:55 PM

Hi James
I've dragged the file and clicked on the landscapes tab but just get a list of four landscapes and no "Setting landscape updates the location" and choose "Mars". to cross this is in windows vista
Roy
oops old version of Stellarium, now downloading 0.9 this one should work thanks.
well tried that and have crossed the "Setting landscape updates the location" but still nothing happens.

Posted by: Reckless Aug 11 2008, 11:00 PM

Hi James again

At last I've got it going, instead of dragging the file into texture/landscapes I dragged it into another landscapes folder that is at the same level as textures and not inside it.
Thanks James it looks great, now I'm off to play with it smile.gif mars.gif
Roy

Posted by: Hungry4info Aug 12 2008, 01:56 AM

Lol I redownloaded Stellarium just for this (I had uninstalled it a while back), and am not sorry I did, lol.
Very nice work! smile.gif

Posted by: Astro0 Aug 12 2008, 02:10 AM

Yes, this works beautifully.
FYI - as Reckless said, for PC users put the 'PhoenixLandingSite' folder under \Program Files\Stellarium\landscapes\PhoenixLandingSite and then the rest of the steps as per the instructions in that folder's document.

Ant103 - this is absolutely excellent and I have already used it today in an outreach talk. Very effective! Thanks.

Astro0

PS: For anyone who doesn't know Stellarium get it http://www.stellarium.org/

PPS: Ant - I hope you don't mind, here's a little tweak of the PeterPan to which I've added the phantom robotic arm just to make Phoenix look complete.


How it looks...

Posted by: Ant103 Aug 12 2008, 11:02 AM

Thanks wink.gif.
Astro0 : happy to see that it's usefull for you smile.gif. And really like the adding of RA smile.gif.

Posted by: Enceladus75 Oct 25 2008, 02:50 AM

Those are simply astounding images guys - well done!

Two things - are there plans for another panoramic grand image just before Phoenix's mission ends in mid November? It might be useful to see any emerging ice/frost on the ground, cloudier skies and compare with the earlier images.

Another thing that has been niggling at me. Where precisely is Phoenix in terms of its regional location? I mean within a 30/50 km radius? Has anyone precisely determined the distant hills/craters seen from Phoenix and thus determined their and Phoenix's location? Can the rim of Heimdall, the crater seen in that spectacular shot of the landing last May, be seen in the distance from the Phoenix landing site?

Posted by: tedstryk Oct 25 2008, 03:07 AM

There is a lot of information on the landing site in this thread http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=557&st=0&start=0

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