[X] My Assistant

[Bjorn Jonsson]

After extensive software improvements to speed things up I just finished doing an experimental Iapetus animation based on a new and bigger version of the DEM described in this thread. The new version looks like this:



The animation can be downloaded from here (almost 5 MB). It requires the DivX codec (see http://www.divx.com )

A sample frame from the animation:


The animation starts and ends 3000 km from Iapetus' center and gets to within about 300 km from the surface. Vertical relief is exaggerated by a factor of 3. I may do a new version later with the horizon horizontal at close range and not vertical as in this animation. Flying over a bigger part of the surface at close range is another idea.

The texture map was generated as a byproduct when doing the DEM so it fits the DEM perfectly. It was processed to make dark terrain lighter, otherwise the animation appears too dark.

Once I have a DEM covering a bigger part of Iapetus I will update the animation.

[ngunn]

I'd love to see this (even with 3x vertical exaggeration) but unfortunately it won't play on our system.

As a matter of curiosity how do you define vertical exaggeration on a non-spherical body?

[ugordan]

Nigel: You can calculate normals to each point of the surface and exaggerate along that direction, which works fine even for triaxial ellipsoid approximations.