The international planetary science community has launched, landed and operated dozens of human and robotic missions to the planets and the Moon. They have collected various surface imagery that has only been partially utilized for further scientific purposes. The FP7 project PRoViDE (Planetary Robotics Vision Data Exploitation) has assembled a major portion of the imaging data gathered so far from planetary surface missions into a unique database, bringing them into a spatial context and providing access to a complete set of 3D vision products. The processing chain is exploited by a multi-resolution visualization engine that combines various levels of detail for a seamless and immersive real-time access to dynamically rendered 3D scenes. Latest results of 3D fusion between HiRISE and MER/MSL 3D stereo vision products are shown, as well as combined 3D vision processing results from multiple rover stations such as available for MER at Victoria Crater and for MSL at the Shaler site.
The special modules of photogrammetric processing of remote sensing data that provide the opportunity to effectively organize and optimize the planetary studies were developed. As basic application the commercial software package PHOTOMOD™ is used. Special modules were created to perform various types of data processing: calculation of preliminary navigation parameters, calculation of shape parameters of celestial body, global view image orthorectification, estimation of Sun illumination and Earth visibilities from planetary surface. For photogrammetric processing the different types of data have been used, including images of the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Phobos, Galilean satellites and Enceladus obtained by frame or push-broom cameras. We used modern planetary data and images that were taken over the years, shooting from orbit flight path with various illumination and resolution as well as obtained by planetary rovers from surface. Planetary data image processing is a complex task, and as usual it can take from few months to years. We present our efficient pipeline procedure that provides the possibilities to obtain different data products and supports a long way from planetary images to celestial body maps. The obtained data – new three-dimensional control point networks, elevation models, orthomosaics – provided accurate maps production: a new Phobos atlas (Karachevtseva et al., 2015) and various thematic maps that derived from studies of planetary surface (Karachevtseva et al., 2016a).
Abstract. For automation of measurements of morphometric parameters of surface relief various tools were developed and integrated into GIS. We have created a tool, which calculates statistical characteristics of the surface: interquartile range of heights, and slopes, as well as second derivatives of height fields as measures of topographic roughness. Other tools were created for morphological studies of craters. One of them allows automatic placing of topographic profiles through the geometric center of a crater. Another tool was developed for calculation of small crater depths and shape estimation, using C++ programming language. Additionally, we have prepared tool for calculating volumes of relief features from DTM rasters. The created software modules and models will be available in a new developed web-GIS system, operating in distributed cloud environment.
<p>The standardization of cartographic methods and data products is critical for accurate and precise analysis and scientific reporting. This is more relevant today than ever before, as researchers have easy access to a magnitude of digital data as well as to the tools to process and analyze these various products. The life cycle of cartographic products can be short and standardized descriptions are needed to keep track of different developments.</p><p>Planetary Cartography does not only provide the basis to support planning (e.g., landing-site selection, orbital observations, traverse planning) and to facilitate mission conduct during the lifetime of a mission (e.g., observation tracking and hazard avoidance). It also provides the means to create science products after successful termination of a planetary mission by distilling data into maps and map-related products. After a mission&#8217;s lifetime, data and higher level products such as mosaics and digital terrain models (DTMs) are stored in archives and are eventually re-used and transformed into maps and higher-level data products to provide a new basis for research and for new scientific and engineering studies. The complexity of such tasks increases with every new dataset that has been put on this stack of information, and in the same way as the complexity of autonomous probes increases, also tools that support these challenges require new levels of sophistication. In the planetary sciences, cartography and mapping have a history dating back to the roots of telescopic space exploration and are now facing new technological and organizational challenges with the rise of innovative missions, improved instruments, global data initiatives, new organizations and opening research markets. A general aim for this Planetary Cartography community is to develop concepts and approaches to foster future cooperation between scientists, cartographers and non-cartographers. </p><p>The focus of this contribution is to summarize recent activities in Planetary Cartography, highlighting current issues the community is facing, and to derive future opportunities in this field in order to address technical and scientific objectives. Furthermore, we focus on (1) identifying and prioritizing needs of the planetary cartography community along with a strategic timeline to accomplish such goals, (2) keeping track of ongoing work across the globe in the field of Planetary Cartography, and (3) identifying areas of evolving technologies and innovations that deal with mapping strategies as well as output media for the dissemination and communication of cartographic results.</p><p>By this we would like to invite cartographers, researchers and map-enthusiasts to join this community and to start thinking about how we can jointly solve some of these challenges.</p>
