WIBSTAC - Tactical Rover Planning by Intelligent Wide-Baseline Stereo

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. A key question is to find the optimal viewing positions for a rover for such stereo pairs. VRVis will extend the View Planner, an interactive tool integrated into PRo3D that enables visibility analysis and simulated rover camera views.

Screenshot of the View Planner prototype in PRo3D showing different representations of the Martian surface with markers.

A planned view for the left Mastcam-Z camera showing the covered area of the Martian surface as red polygon and the rover position as abstraction of dots and vectors. The upper right frame shows a simulated view of the camera from that position and with the settings adjusted in the UI in the lower right frame. The terrain is a fusion of a low-res reconstruction from orbital data and a high-res reconstruction from rover data. © NASA/JPL/CalTech/ASU/MSSS/JR/VRVis; HiRISE data: USGS (DTM & panchromatic Ortho layer) and JPL Mars 2020 Science Team (RGB Ortho layer)

3D landscape of Mars in a software window

Another planned view for the left eye of the Mastcam-Z looking towards the rim of Jezero crater. The traverse of the Perseverance rover is shown as white polyline with waypoints and their Sols. One of these waypoints were chosen in the UI as viewing position. The terrain is a low-res reconstruction from orbital data. A simulated view of the camera is shown in the upper right frame. © NASA/JPL/CalTech/ASU/MSSS/JR/VRVis; HiRISE data: USGS (DTM & panchromatic Ortho layer) and JPL Mars 2020 Science Team (RGB Ortho layer)

3D reconstructions of Martian terrains are essential assets for mission operation and geologic analysis. They can also be created from overlapping images from different rover positions. This corresponds to a stereo camera with a very large baseline (distance between the two cameras or eyes), which extends the mapping range.

WIBSTAC focuses on the planning of optimized wide baseline observations to be embedded in the operations timeline of the ExoMars rover mission. WIBSTAC serves two main objectives, support geologic interpretations at multiple scales and enable rover path planning by larger-distance mapping.

WIBSTAC is coordinated by JOANNEUM Research, who researches on wide baseline processing of rover camera imagery. Industrial partner SLR Engineering will apply the results to a terrestrial case – finding optimal viewing positions for traffic surveillance. Via our Italian partner ALTEC, WIBSTAC can be evaluated in the test environment of ExoMars operations.

VRVis main research goals

VRVis’ role is to research interactive visualization methods to analyze viewing positions and support finding optimal ones for wide baseline stereo. For that, the View Planner of the planetary exploration tool PRo3D will be extended to meet these objectives. It shows the visible areas of the planetary terrain for different rover positions and camera settings. Additionally, simulated views are provided for rover cameras. Information visualization methods allow an efficient assessment of the expected capturing quality and comparisons of different viewpoints along a rover path.

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.

Mars-DL - Simulating Training Data for Deep Learning

The "Mars-DL" project is investigating how a deep learning system can support the research work of planetary scientists through object and pattern recognition. For this project VRVis has extended the functionality of PRo3D to automatically render shatter cone training images.

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.

The CosmoWeather research project aims to develop VR and AR solutions for experts and the general public to make the research field of space weather more accessible and understandable.

Former projects