Visual analysis supports planetary research

Mastcam-Z

Support for planetary science of Mars2020 mission data: Visual analysis of Martian surface reconstructions for the Perseverance rover camera instruments.

3D reconstruction of the Jezero crater interactively explorable with PRo3D — 3D reconstruction of a location within Jezero crater on Mars visited by the Perseverance rover. It can be interactively explored with Pro3D. Scale bars were placed into the scene to give a sense of scale. This is a fusion of a high-res reconstruction from rover imagery (solid rendering in the foreground) and a low-res reconstruction from orbital data (wireframe rendering in the background). The left hill seen on the horizon was named „Kodiak“ and is a remnant of sedimentary deposits of an ancient river delta. © NASA/JPL/CalTech/ASU/MSSS/JR/VRVis; HiRISE data: USGS (DTM & panchromatic Ortho layer) and JPL Mars 2020 Science Team (RGB Ortho layer).

This project shares many research questions with ExoMars - PanCam and from the point of view of PRo3D development a lot of synergies can be exploited. The Mastcam-Z is the multispectral, stereoscopic camera mounted on the mast of the Mars-2020 Perseverance rover - its "scientific eyes". High-resolution reconstructions of Martian surfaces are created from its imagery by our partner Joanneum Research in a timely manner. These 3D products are then immediately available for a first analysis with Pro3D. Furthermore, the batch rendering feature of PRo3D is used to produce fly-over videos for public dissemination, the worldwide first of which was released shortly after the successful landing of the Perseverance rover.

Contact

Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Christoph Traxler

Area Coordinator Smart Worlds & Head of GeoSMAQ, Geospatial Visualization, Semantic Modelling, and Acquisition Group

traxler(at)vrvis.at +43 1 908 98 92 520

Project details

Start: 01.2017

End Date: 12.2020

Partners

Joanneum Research, Natural History Museum Vienna

Funded by

NASA via ESA (Prodex)

In the PROVEX project, JOANNEUM Research and VRVis are developing a provenance-aware workflow management tool for heterogeneous data for use in ESA's HERA mission.

WIBSTAC addresses the usage of wide baseline stereo 3D reconstruction for medium- and long-range mapping of the Martian surface, based on imagery from panoramic rover camera instruments.

PRo3D, short for Planetary Robotics 3D Viewer, is an interactive 3D visualization tool that allows planetary researchers to work with high-resolution 3D reconstructions of the surface of Mars.