Exactly my feelings too - and an excellent book. I've just finished it and am working on a review that I'll post in a few days.

Another vote for the Morton book. It is exceptionally readable.

Route map, updated to sol 803.

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Update to sol 805. Other sols left off to avoid clutter.
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Route map, updated to sol 805.

Click to view attachment (225k)

"There and back again", a Hobbits tale

I have combined the two half-pans from abalone and jvandriel and made a circular version. The join isn't perfect but it gives a good idea of the recent travels.

Phil

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A nod to Alan at the JPL traverse map site!

That's more than a nod! I feel like it should include a credit.

Phil

I'd second that, in any case Alan should know that we give him the credit, his traverse maps really brought across the idea of "terrain" at a time when it was sorely needed, it's very nice to see JPL using the same idea.

...and I'll third that. Alan's perspective maps were clearly appreciated by all here as an innovation, and now it would appear that they are indeed "giving a nod to Alan," as fredk suggested. This isn't the first time we've seen this. In the past months they have been experimenting with a number of route map formats, some of which seem to have been inspired by the work of people here.

Perhaps the similarities are a coincidence, but I wouldn't look at the lack of a posted credit as a slight to anyone here. How often do we all forget to credit NASA/JPL/et al in our works? Alan should be beaming. It seems to me that this is just another indication that this is a great forum to stay on top of.

Did we not see a similar thing showing the route from WS to LL using imagery from the Santa Anita pan?

I'm not sure if that came before or after the first of the 'Alan is lost' series of images for that section - but the Inner Basin image isn't the first to use the technique.

Doug

They finally published their version. Nice to see we are in agreement this time. As much as I'd like to take credit for the idea I did see one of theirs first. The first one I saw was posted by Pando (youremi in the other forum) showing Spirit's location during conjuntion. I started about a month later, just before Spirit left west spur, after SigurRosFan (bluescape) asked about Palenque which he found in an image from below West Spur. That was when I realized it was possible to track spirit across an image.

Where?? Where is Palenque?

Man, how long ago?

I can't find a smilie to translate it, but this guy here gets a bit emotional seing things like this...
Great work Phil.

Yes, indeed, Alan's route map brought Spirit's trek to life. And what's great is that hopefully we'll still be using it for another 12 months or more. It'll be cool to eventually see Spirit's plot as it makes its way up McCool Hill (eventually).

By the way, Alan, I'm putting together of "Best Of" photos page for my site and I wanted to use the route map if that's ok. Also, is it possible for you to email me a PSD version as I'll probably make a smaller version and would probably have to change the font size?

Thanks,
Aldo.

My maps are better looking.

Yes, Doug, I forgot about that one. My bad, as they say. Anyway, it's been a long time since we've seen one of them from JPL, and none of the previous had the same impact as the view from the top of Husband Hill that Alan brought to us. I only wanted to "give a nod to alan" and did not intend to slight anyone else.

Regarding the concept that the official maps have experimented over time with different presentations, there was the brief appearance of a nice one containing contour lines, and also one from Opportunity that resembled Dilo's wonderful creations using vertical projections, iirc.

Indeed, Alan's map are exemplary and very helpful for outreach. JPL's new route map is very welcome

very beauti ful photo. there is Eldorado. and something outcrop.

Something outcrop is known as Home Plate.

The relative brightnesses of Eldorado and HP in the 'ground truth' image are quite intriguing when compared to the orbital images. I realise that filters, sun angles etc play a part, but it really does look *so* different when you see 'em side by side.

Bob Shaw

Somewhat more than a nod; this is a clear copy of Alan's concept. The route maps of the "jpl contractors" were horrid at first but have improved, showing the influences of Alan's and Tesheiner's maps. That is all fine, but realize that these contractors are being paid for this work under contract and it is bothersome that this work was inferior to what has been produced by our members.

--Bill

I think Bill exaggerates this point (sorry Bill!). The maps shown at JPL are designed for a public with a less intense interest than ours. I would say this especially of the Opportunity maps, made by Ron Li and colleagues and really only intended to give an indication of the route without much detail. The Spirit maps are much better - I think Larry Crumpler is doing them. There's also the issue of time and priorities - these press release maps are not the highest priority, probably just squeezed into a tight schedule. The bottom line - most people don't care to the extent we do. It's fine by me that we have our own cartographers.

PS I miss Dilo's vertical maps!

Phil

I wasn't exaggerating, I was on my soapbox. So there...

But I agree, the maps are for "public consumption" and are OK for that purpose.

--Bill

I think NASA files most press releases under the "Pretty Pictures" dept. Most people can't find Mars in the sky, let alone worry about the accuracy of a rover ON Mars!

I do so enjoy the higher standards of this community - both for artistry and accuracy.

Here's a not very accurate but perhaps interesting map...

I took the set of circular pans I've made in the Home Plate area, mostly by manipulating the fine pans made by jvandriel. Then I joined them together. Each pan is distorted, larger at the centre than it should be, so each pan is not a perfect map. Joining them makes it worse because they are not all at the same scale. These problems could be overcome by reprojecting each pan into a better map geometry first, but that must wait until later.

Anyway, the result is quite nice for showing the general appearance of the surface as Spirit moved around HP.

Phil

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Awesome.. I don't think I told you this before -but I love your work (and Jvandriel's) !

Nico

I would prefer to omit these circles but leave ones at the final parking. But as you say it is a interesting point of view, yes it is certain.

Rodolfo

To anticipate/plan for what Spirit may do whenever it leaves the present location, we need a decent topo map (and, ideally, an 'energy' map) for the Home Plate - Low Ridge - Pitcher's Mound/von Braun area. Who can we persuade/sweet-talk/bribe/ threaten to provide us one. Somebody at NASA/JPL-Caltech/USGS/OSU?
C'mon, somebody must have a handle on this. I like to know where I'm going!

We have the topo data from the MOC DEM files that were made available a while back but we need to produce an overlay from that for the "energy map". I've started on that but I don't have any good GIS tools that can do precisely what I need so I'm rolling my own. It's going to take a while though (months) as I'm a bit too busy with my real job.

I know that the good folks at JPL have much better stuff than I'm going to be able to produce - we've seen the Spirit Energy map for example. What I've wanted to do from the start was produce a sort of general purpose utility that would (a) calculate the effective energy produced by the arrays at any point in time under specified conditions (dust deposition, atmospheric opacity, orientation wrt sun & albedo) and ( integrate the former with a local DEM to allow general energy maps for traverses to be produced.

I finished the first version of the first part last year but the second part is seriously stretching my coding skills and I don't even have a basic working outline ready yet although I can manipulate some of the DEM data in the way that I want. It's all fun to work on though so I don't mind if it's already out there - I just want to be able to do it myself and share the results if I think they are acceptable.

And don't blame my boss - he's just holding me to commitments I made myself. Having a job that you like can have its downsides.

As requested in the Opportunity route map thread, here is the latest version of my Spirit map - just the last two sections of a ten-section map. Each square is 500 m on a side, the grid is at 100 m spacing measured from the landing site.

Phil

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Gorgeous! Thanks again, Phil!

Not really enough to show on this scale but what the hell.
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I just noticed the new hazcams. Excellent...the Spirit awakens.

If my understanding of the rover quaternians is right then I reckon Spirit lost less than 1 degree of north tilt during this manouver. It's now about 10 degrees (cf. 11 before), good news.

James

I have taken a polar version of the Spirit site, cropped out the middle portion and filled some of the central hole with other images to make a rough (geometrically uncontrolled) base map of the Low Ridge Haven site. The irregular white patch is still not seen in images.

On that I have added the approximate locations of Spirit while it has been here. There was another turn and move today.

Phil

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Phil - I think the tracks on your 805- site is actually just where it backed up a bit ON sol 1009 before driving forward a little to the end of 1009 position.

Doug

I'm not sure. Looking at the 1010 rear hazcams here:

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/spirit_r1010.html

and the rear hazcams from earlier sols, I don't see it that way.

Phil

Nope - you're right, I think I had the local geography screwey in my head.

Doug

Hi res route map for spirit

it's a Draft version

here a browse version of full path.



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here a first sample of draft in full res

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here a second draft ...

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it's a quick pointing to have a global idee of path ...

a validated path need more time ...

Can you find this big roch from map?
http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/gallery/all/2/n...00P1846L0M1.JPG (sol 127)
I mean MRO maps.

That rock is maybe biggest rock in Spirit landscape.

i think is a question for threat "Spirit from HiRISE" but i answer ...

here my attemp of route map point validation for sol:127 site:48 drive:00 ...

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and here a final location for sol 127.

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As I recall there were one or two rather massive looking boulders skylined (silhouetted) along the ridgeline of the Columbia Hills (toward Clark Hill) as Spirit was approaching West Spur. I had estimated them back then to be five or ten meters tall. It's one of the items on my list to examine in the HiRISE image when I have a few spare minutes.

I was intrigued by those rocks too Elk, they looked massive. btw, very cool maps Indian..

Nico

Here's a Pancam from sol 131. Looks like the big boulder is just North of Clark Hill. If anyone wants to break out that section of the HiRISE image, I still haven't conquered the full res versions yet.

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...00P2438R1M1.JPG