Mars Arctic in 3D from Phoenix
Written by Nancy Atkinson
OK, everyone: get out your funky 3-D glasses for a whole new look at Mars! We've seen the smooth plains of Meridiani from Opportunity in 3-D; we've gazed upon the rocky terrain of Gusev Crater from Spirit in more than two dimensions. But now it's time to feast your eyes on Mars' arctic tundra as its never been seen before: in super frozen 3-D from the Phoenix lander! The image above shows a color, stereoscopic 3D view of the Martian surface near the lander, and is one of Phoenix's workplaces called "Wonderland." But wait! There's more…..
This 3-D view is from an image acquired by Phoenix's Surface Stereo Imager on Sol 33, the 33rd Martian day of the mission (June 28, 2008). Phoenix's solar panel is seen in the bottom right corner of the image.
Here's a close up view of where all the action has been taking place recently: the trench called "Snow White." The hole to the left of the trench, seen in the upper left of the image, is informally called "Burned Alive. This image was taken on Sol 22, but recently, Phoenix has scooped and rasped the area in an effort to get "shaved ice" samples.
Here's a great touchy-feely 3-D image (don't you just want to reach out and touch that rock?) The largest rock seen in this image is called "Midgard." The edge of Phoenix's deck is seen in the bottom right corner of the image.
There's lots more 3-D loveliness at the Phoenix Image Gallery. Have fun!
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July 18th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
Wao! I wish I had a 3D glasses…
July 18th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
You can make your own 3-D glasses. Instructions are here:
http://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/classroom/glasses.shtml
July 18th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
Another question for NASA.
Have they seen JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH in digital 3D?
Anything is better than the old, old red and blue system they use.
Has anybody ever told them that there are other better systems for clearer pictures, including polarized glasses?
These blue red pictures are junk.
July 18th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
That last rock looks like a fossilized Martian fishfrog.
July 19th, 2008 at 1:58 am
So when is NASA going to offer free 3D glasses in every box of Wheaties or Cheerios or maybe its own Space Explorer's Mars Mission cereal? In fact, when do we start seeing action model Phoenix landers, and Spiit and Opportunity models, and comic books and action figures, etc., etc. The marketing potential might even provide a desperately needed boost to NASA'a budget. And you KNOW that ESA or the Japanese or Disney are going to be doing it. Let's get started now….
July 19th, 2008 at 7:04 am
The View Master system, now considered a toy only, is ten times better than what NASA uses. And there is no need for glasses and the viewer shows perfect colored 3D images in wheels NASA could sell — if they really want people to clearly see what is on the Martian surface.
Otherwise, again, these red-blue images are useless junk.
July 19th, 2008 at 8:42 am
And the Phoenix haters march on in their endless quest to spew bile on every aspect of the mission, no matter how trivial or awesome.
Sheesh, people!
July 19th, 2008 at 11:49 am
I am not Phoenix hater. I am pissed by the stupid old, old methods they are using to give the public terrible quality pictures. I am sure, they do not use red-blue lenses to see their 3D photos.
These poor quality junky pictures the public gets are distorted, manipulated, and low, very low resolution of objects that are interesting and could heat up debate and speculation, not about their intentions, but about what is on the Martian surface. The questions are simply put, not emotional, but intellectual:
Why NASA do not give the general public clear, neat high resolution of strange objects on the surface?
Why NASA distort cut and poorly paste photo to hide objects?
Why NASA did reverse to negative the first important picture of the face before given to the public?
Why does NASA use obsolete 3D systems for the public?
Why does NASA change the colors of the Martian surface in almost every picture?
Why doesn't NASA come up with an explanation about the circles, wheels, boxes and other unusual shapes that cannot be regular rocks?
And there are many others.
I appreciate what their team is doing, I don't hate what they are doing. I am puzzled by some stupid, apparently, things they do as the ones listed before. And I wonder why it is so obvious that they are doing these sloppy jobs.
C'mon please, the world is full with supercomputers and excellent enhancing programs.
Red-blue 3D… pleeeeez!!
July 19th, 2008 at 11:27 pm
Ralph Rewes, do you realize your "argument" amounts to a pointless rant that does not contribute to this or any discussion regarding the exploration of space and the extraterrestrial planets that happen to inhabit that area therein?
I am getting sick and god damned tired of listening of these sorts of conspiracy hypotheses. I might just have to go back to ask the moderators on this forum to limit critical arguments against the Phoenix mission to the rational. It is not reasonable to ask people like me to have to put up with sitting here, clicking on a link like this, and having to read posts after endless posts from those who have an axe to grind with no discernible reason for doing so.
Listening to folks like you is starting to be like having to put up with 9-11 "truthers" spamming those forums every time a video of a building demolition is posted on CNN.com or elsewhere.
July 20th, 2008 at 10:02 am
Your are by yourself a rant. I am not pointing to conspiracy theories, but this NASA behavior feed them. You are so rigid that you cannot answer any of the question. Do you know how to read or you just pick up your dumb clichés at random?
You are putting words in my mouth. Be sensible instead of defensive, in fact, I guess you have nothing to do with this or ever will.
July 20th, 2008 at 10:10 am
THIS IS a sample of sloppy job by NASA, cutting and pasting in such an obvious sloppy job, that anyone, anyone, even an idiot can tell.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6kj_2bTy_k
My question is why do they do this?
I have no theory. I really do not know the reason. I cannot accept that highly trained professional do that as his everyday job.
July 20th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
I don't think of conspiracy,
but I do wish Nasa would also present these as stereo pairs, so we could look at them in 3d like magic eye pictures (etc)
it's not that hard to view and you don't have to hunt for red/green specs
July 20th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
Ralph, you truly are full of bullshit. Oh my…you have "youtube" evidence. Go take that to the media! If it's on youtube, it MUST be true, eh? You'll be famous for finally showing incontrovertible proof that NASA is selling lies to the public. I'm sure the General Accounting Office would welcome such news. I mean, as Congress' accounting arm of wasteful government projects, they would probably blow a gasket if what you said was true.
But you know why that won't ever happen Ralph? It's because you have no idea what you're talking about and no evidence to back it up. Your defensive posture and lack of any evidence just shows you for the bafoon you are, and I'm totally with Dave on this. I dare you to prove me wrong, WITH SOME REAL GODDAMN EVIDENCE.
July 21st, 2008 at 1:44 am
Well said Dave Finton. I too am heartily sick of the nit-pickers and conspiracy theorists that rock up here time after time. By all means point out to those of us who may be unaware of newer/better techniques but please stop your whingeing. Ralph et al merely sound like spoiled children who continually talk about how much better their bicycle/games/computer/toys are than yours while sticking out their tongues. One imagines them howling at their monitors in impotent rage. All rather silly really.
Paul.
July 21st, 2008 at 7:56 am
Temper, temper. You'll blow a gasket. Dave actually sounds as though he's a sane person so perhaps he and I would get on.
July 21st, 2008 at 6:54 pm
I'm sorry to ruin the mood guys, but to me this argument sounds childish. Why can't we just accept that each of us have different opinions on different matters! I do agree with each one of your opinions not that i'm tring to be neutral or anything, its just that i'm trying to be open minded and consider each one of our opinions as the possible truth and not just arguing about my own. I know that not "everything I know" and "am sure of" as the truth may or may not be true. The key here is open-mindedness. Why do you think is the cause of religious wars? ( I'm so sorry for being so off topic I just couldn't help it!)
July 22nd, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Ralph, do you have polarised glasses, and the other equipment required for it to view on a standard PC monitor? … Or you got some holographic display at home? Can you imagine that there is free programs to make R-B images from any two normal pictures?
And did you know that those are maybe not normal made-in-china cameras, they cover more of the light spectrum, and the NASA has to correct the pictures?
July 23rd, 2008 at 12:23 pm
The first picture is Red/Green, the others are Red/Cyan. You'd need two different anaglyph glasses to view these pictures.
And a question for Ralph. Maybe you can invent a way other than red/blue variants to bring 3D to a standard LCD monitor. Give up? Because it doesn't exist, that's why you have anaglyph images.
The only alternatives to anaglyph glasses are 3-D shutter glasses, which work best on CRT monitors with high refresh rates (120Hz or greater). Forget about using it on a standard LCD monitor. Not to mention, you have to pay over $100 for the glasses, the software, and the image needs to saved in a special format for 3-D shutter glasses. Sounds mainstream to you?
Another alternative is to buy special 3D LCD monitors like IZ3D. These are basically 2 LCD screens in one monitor, one for each eye. Glasses are still required, they work similarly to 3D shutter glasses. These monitors cost $600 to $3000. Sounds mainstream to you?
Perhaps NASA was thinking the best way to bring 3D images to the masses, was simply the easiest to implement–anaglyph. Works on any monitor, and all you need is the glasses, which you can make yourself or get with a $5 children's 3-D book.
Another way is to release the images as a cross-eyed pair, but I really doubt they wanted to give people like Ralph a headache.
July 24th, 2008 at 9:55 am
Not to mention sending the equipment to MARS requires that they radiation shield and otherwise impair their hardware to the point where they're still using about 128 megs of ram on this thing.
July 24th, 2008 at 10:44 am
Cool, but the red/blue glasses are a pain. For web viewing, why not have side-by-side pairs? They can be viewed by holding one's hands to one's nose and forehead to improvise a stereo viewer. (Admittedly, it does help if one is near-sighted.)
July 24th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Well put Sammy!
As for the other post about red/green vs. red/cyan? The "difference" is that the first image is in color. The others are B&W, so the cyan truly looks cyan. Since they color image has additional yellow components to it, the cyan looks green (look at a color wheel). All the images look fine with my cardboard glasses.
Also, only conspiracy theorists think that NASA is covering up evidence of the "little green men." The images are sent back in discontinuous (often discontiguous) chunks, then they have to be stitched together, which might not be seamlessly possible.
Geez people! Would you at least give these things a *little* technical thinking, beyond the surface level, before you rant & rave and criticize the people who present this stuff… people who are smarter than you?
July 24th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
P.S. — If NASA released side-by-side images, then people would really complain. Also, have you ever tried side-by-side with images so big? It's near impossible unless you back way up (and even then, headache central!). Really it's only feasible for small images.
I'm sure if you go to NASA's website on this project you can download the separate right/left images.
July 24th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Just get a pair of red/green glasses.
Here are three sources:
1. Buy a 3D movie, such as Spy Kids. The glasses (4 pair) come in the DVD box.
2. Go to the grocery store and get red and green cellophane. They sell it in on the same aisle as the plastic bags. Stretch it over some cheap sunglass frames.
3. Go here: http://www.3dglassesonline.com/how-do-3d-glasses-work/ All they cost is postage.
Now quityerbitchin.
July 24th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
One more source for glasses…
Purchase Hexstatic – MasterView and enjoy the benefis of getting Red-Blue glasses (still work on these images just fine) and a great CD+DVD of music by Hexstatic!
July 25th, 2008 at 12:44 am
Thank you ppl for posting this once again wonderful 3D view of Mars.
Having said that, a couple of postings were dealing with the fact ( < fact ) that the resolutions of the publicly avaliable photos are of a somewhat low(er) resolution & quality then the ones that are internally avaliable.
I do not find it odd, because I think I know some of the scientific/commercial based reasons to do that, but the US tax payer should be treated with a little more respect then an 'Highrez' Atari ST 640×400 B/W monitor resolution.
Other then then that, just once again; tnx A LOT !
Regards,
Aryan – an EU taxpayer.
July 25th, 2008 at 3:46 am
you can't create polarized images on flatscreens.
only on crt's with expensive glasses.
July 27th, 2008 at 12:42 am
maybe if they would pull that rock off they'll be led to j'onn j'onnz martian lair lol