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| Titel |
An Interactive Virtual 3D Tool for Scientific Exploration of Planetary Surfaces |
| VerfasserIn |
Christoph Traxler, Gerd Hesina, Sanjeev Gupta, Gerhard Paar |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2014
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 16 (2014) |
| Datensatznummer |
250096531
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 EGU/EGU2014-12038.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
| In this paper we present an interactive 3D visualization tool for scientific analysis and
planning of planetary missions. At the moment scientists have to look at individual camera
images separately. There is no tool to combine them in three dimensions and look at them
seamlessly as a geologist would do (by walking backwards and forwards resulting in different
scales). For this reason a virtual 3D reconstruction of the terrain that can be interactively
explored is necessary. Such a reconstruction has to consider multiple scales ranging
from orbital image data to close-up surface image data from rover cameras. The 3D
viewer allows seamless zooming between these various scales, giving scientists the
possibility to relate small surface features (e.g. rock outcrops) to larger geological
contexts.
For a reliable geologic assessment a realistic surface rendering is important. Therefore the
material properties of the rock surfaces will be considered for real-time rendering. This is
achieved by an appropriate Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF)
estimated from the image data. The BRDF is implemented to run on the Graphical Processing
Unit (GPU) to enable realistic real-time rendering, which allows a naturalistic perception for
scientific analysis.
Another important aspect for realism is the consideration of natural lighting conditions,
which means skylight to illuminate the reconstructed scene. In our case we provide skylights
from Mars and Earth, which allows switching between these two modes of illumination. This
gives geologists the opportunity to perceive rock outcrops from Mars as they would appear on
Earth facilitating scientific assessment.
Besides viewing the virtual reconstruction on multiple scales, scientists can also perform
various measurements, i.e. geo-coordinates of a selected point or distance between two
surface points. Rover or other models can be placed into the scene and snapped onto certain
location of the terrain. These are important features to support the planning of rover paths. In
addition annotations can be placed directly into the 3D scene, which also serve as landmarks
to aid navigation.
The presented visualization and planning tool is a valuable asset for scientific analysis of
planetary mission data. It complements traditional methods by giving access to an interactive
virtual 3D reconstruction, which is realistically rendered. Representative examples and further
information about the interactive 3D visualization tool can be found on the FP7-SPACE
Project PRoViDE web page http://www.provide-space.eu/interactive-virtual-3d-tool/.
The research leading to these results has received funding from the European
Union’sSeventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement n°
312377 “PRoViDE”. |
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