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jekbradbury
Download: Google Earth 5 w/Mars
An early overview is available here.

This is exactly what I've been waiting for ever since Google Earth came out five years ago. And HiRISE integration is amazing.
djellison
Holy cow - that's amazing...it's what we've ALL been waiting for I think.
Tesheiner
OMG!!!
Type "Victoria Crater" on the search box and enjoy!
OWW
WOW!!! Zoomable CTX images! Finally. smile.gif

You're right Doug, if this is not what you've been waiting for, you're either mad or crazy, or both.
hendric
Select one of the photos from a lander, and then hit "Fly into this Hi Resolution Photo"

mars.gif
Geert
QUOTE (jekbradbury @ Feb 3 2009, 03:51 AM) *
This is exactly what I've been waiting for ever since Google Earth came out five years ago. And HiRISE integration is amazing.


This is GREAT!
Indeed, this is what I've been waiting for, this opens whole new options and possibility's... mind-boggling. Keeping track of the rover, posting images, exchanging positions, etc, etc, it can all be integrated in this. Plus I wouldn't be surprised if we can develop more enhancements (for instance options to integrate with other sensors, etc, etc) ourselves as add-on's...

Now make the same for the moon as soon as LRO is in orbit, and then continue with all the other planets and moons, looking at the basic setup it seems that that's indeed the idea...
helvick
I just love the way they have a little MER model at the end of the rover tracks. smile.gif

CosmicRocker
Many, many thanks for discovering and posting this, jekbradbury. smile.gif

I must imagine this will become a very useful tool for us. It's nice to zoom out to a regional level and check out the green backpacker icons that link to excerpts from "A Traveler's Guide to Mars."

I'm a bit disappointed to find that only some of the HiRise imagery seems to included, but nevertheless, the new software delivers a rich Martian experience to me. I'd have to give it a "thumbs up" as I look forward to where it goes from here.
HughFromAlice
Thanks - Great. Luckily I had a bit of spare time tonight - because I used it all up!!!

Maps look like they are up to date for the rover positions.
Tesheiner
Opportunity map covers the route up to Santorini.

I know that google earth has the option to add "home-made" layers to it ("KML" files); actually I used that feature to map some mountain-bike routes which I logged with a GPS.

<Mmm, just wondering how to translate the rover's route data I have to google earth format...>
charborob
Just took a few minutes to test this thing. Amazing! Can't wait to have some free time on my hands. Have you tried the flight simulator on Mars?
neo56
I achieved one of my dream : flying in Noctis Labyrinthus, losing myself inside the meanders of the canyon biggrin.gif
lyford
It seems my Placemarks have survived the interplanetary journey.... or else there is a Wild Animal Park near the Cynae Fossae region! And my house appears to be in a crater chain or collapsed lava tube - how cool is that! laugh.gif

Click to view attachment

Very neat - though it is acting like a Beta on my MacBook for sure - or is the Mars Curse affecting me now as well?
Phil Stooke
Well, it's been great mixing with all you nice people on UMSF, but I'm afraid I'm going to stop posting now - and teaching, writing books, eating, you name it. I'm just going to play with Google Mars until the emergency services break the door down and find a dried-up husk in front of the computer.

Phil
Ant103
Hi,

A lot of time without posting here, because of some various problems :/

I discover this post, downloaded this new version of Google Earth, and it's totally amazing ohmy.gif I've been waiting for this during a long time, as many of you. Views from Valles Marineris ridges are astounding, I never feel a sensation of gigantism of Valles Marineris like this!

And hurray, I can load my Phoenix KML EDL into Google Mars, it's better than North of Canada wink.gif.
Mogster
This is amazing. With the terrain mesh detail and aniso filtering applied in the options the detail is very good, its almost like being there.

Just tried the lighting options Sets the correct lighting on the landscape as of now, its sunset from the floor of the Valles Marineris biggrin.gif
dvandorn
I was impressed by the very accurate 3d renderings of locations where they have been able to interpolate good terrain models. For example, I was able to see, with a very high degree of accuracy, what Victoria looks like from on top of the Soup Dragon... smile.gif

-the other Doug
lyford
I love it! But is there anyway to get rid of that blue sky on mars? smile.gif

And it has crashed my mac occasionally loading a MOC image...
eoincampbell
This IS the answer to those IAS Viewer problems on my PPC Mac (never resolved),
I can't remember if Google Earth was around when MRO launched, they've come a long way... smile.gif
djellison
QUOTE (dvandorn @ Feb 5 2009, 03:56 AM) *
I was able to see, with a very high degree of accuracy, what Victoria looks like from on top of the Soup Dragon...


That's the USGS HiRISE DEM work. It's amazing.
CosmicRocker
QUOTE (lyford @ Feb 4 2009, 10:41 PM) *
I love it! But is there anyway to get rid of that blue sky on mars? smile.gif
That's curious. The sky is a gradation of brownish shades on my system.
lyford
Huh - I must have the uncalibrated version!
Click to view attachment
Melas Chasma, Blue Sky Edition
lyford
QUOTE (djellison @ Feb 5 2009, 02:48 AM) *
That's the USGS HiRISE DEM work. It's amazing.

Forget the view from the top, here's from the middle of the Victoria Crater in the dunes looking up! smile.gif
Click to view attachment

There is elevation data for the individual ripples!!!!
Also, I turned of the atmosphere so I wouldn't be distracted by the blueness. There has to be a setting that I am missing somewheres.


imipak
That would have made an interesting first post-landing image...
Juramike
QUOTE (imipak @ Feb 6 2009, 10:31 AM) *
That would have made an interesting first post-landing image...

(...and possibly for the entire mission.)
aldo12xu
Wow, this is amazing! I was flying over the Columbia Hills, Endurance and Victoria for a couple of hours last night.

I'm a newbie to Google Earth......how do I turn off the place names and all those red lines (image boundaries?)? I want to see nothing but the Martian terrain.

jamescanvin
QUOTE (aldo12xu @ Feb 6 2009, 04:27 PM) *
I'm a newbie to Google Earth......how do I turn off the place names and all those red lines (image boundaries?)? I want to see nothing but the Martian terrain.


Bottom left there is a window called Layers where you can tick/untick various boxes to turn those things on/off. Turn them all off apart from Terrain (the bottom one) for the true Mars smile.gif

Just realized that you can have outlines of lots (all?) HiRISE, CTX, MOC, HRSC and CRISM images with links to the image page on the web, by turning on the layers. smile.gif

Click to view attachment
jamescanvin
And for those that might not have realized, the flight simulator works on Mars as well! smile.gif

I've just been annoying Spirit, by buzzing her in my F16.

If you don't know about it, there is a fully functioning Flight Simulator built into Google Earth as an 'easter egg' - press Ctrl + Alt + A ( Cmd + Option + A on the Mac) to enter (after you've done it once a menu item appears under Tools). Have fun.

http://earth.google.com/userguide/v5/ug_flightsim.html
aldo12xu
Man, oh, man, this keeps getting better and better!! Can't wait to get home to try it out. Thanks James!
lyford
Am I the only one on UMSF with the Blue Sky Bug? I am on a Macbook running 10.5
jamescanvin
My screen-shots above were made on a Mac. (fully up to date OSX)

Not sure what your problem could be on your MacBook, bug with the integrated graphics maybe? (I have a iMac with dedicated graphics)
eoincampbell
I too have the blue sky using a G5 PowerMac 10.4.11.
Del Palmer
The blue sky issue appears to be a graphics card limitation:

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/eart...da94c&hl=en
Ant103
No trouble of blue sky for me. I'm running Mac OS 10.5.6 on a Macbook Pro.
lyford
Curse you MacBookPro! You have a better graphics chip than I....

I think there is a UMSF upgrade cycle at work here: I need a bigger HD for the images, a better graphics card, faster internet connections. It's a racket! Doug should get a commission. biggrin.gif
djellison
I need it. Just got a new Macbook myself - 2.4ghz, 4gb Ram, 500gb HDD smile.gif
SFJCody
My Radeon 4870 is really showing its worth. I knew I would need it for something more than Fallout 3!
nprev
I'm not even gonna try downloading it till I get a better machine. My vintage 2003 Dells just aren't up to it.

After lo these many years, I might actually join the Mac crowd! My stepdaughter just visited & she brought her brand-new superthin Powerbook (?); sweet little machine that ran rings around my stuff, I am envious.
DarthVader
QUOTE (nprev @ Feb 7 2009, 01:09 PM) *
I'm not even gonna try downloading it till I get a better machine. My vintage 2003 Dells just aren't up to it.

After lo these many years, I might actually join the Mac crowd! My stepdaughter just visited & she brought her brand-new superthin Powerbook (?); sweet little machine that ran rings around my stuff, I am envious.


Superthin Powerbook? Maybe She's got a MacBook Air? The Powerbook aren't really sprint chicken anymore ;-)
nprev
Yeah, that's it; afraid I'm not up on Mac terminology. Really cool little computer, though.
mhoward
QUOTE (nprev @ Feb 7 2009, 03:05 PM) *
Yeah, that's it; afraid I'm not up on Mac terminology. Really cool little computer, though.


Not to go totally OT, but I've got a MacBook Air, and I'd rather have one of the refreshed PowerBooks that came out recently. They look nice.
djellison
Does anyone know how to load other CTX images / HiRISE images into the landscape—the ones where you see the little orange (or red) square, but clicking on it gives you only the footprint, not the image?

And, is it possible to keep HiRISE images as the top “layer” so they’re not covered up by lower-resolution CTX images?
jamescanvin
Here is a first draft of a Google Mars file with links to all the Opportunity images I have created over the years. smile.gif

http://www.nivnac.co.uk/mer/Martian_Vistas_Opportunity.kml

You need to have Google Earth open and in 'Mars mode' else the links will be in the Atlantic. rolleyes.gif

Click on an icon to bring up a thumbnail image then click on image to open the relevant entry on my site in a browser.

Click to view attachment

Comments, corrections welcome...

James
Astro0
James that's excellent!

I'm wondering if it would be possible for other contributing image processors on UMSF to do the same?
Is it possible to have a simple set of intructions available here on how to do this?

I'm going to start using James' image database with Google Mars in some of my outreach classes.
Kids will love the interaction!

Astro0
jekbradbury
You could go one step further and implement them as KML PhotoOverlays, just like the official ones (with the floating cylinders) smile.gif
Poolio
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.

Click to view attachment
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
djellison
You should check into the Opportunity Route Map thread where Tesheiner is doing the same sort of KML thing.
Tesheiner
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.
Poolio
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.
Tesheiner
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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