Fantastic "bird's eye" views of Mars

Most of you here already know about Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) which orbits Mars and takes very high-resolution images of its surface. But this orbiter also measures the elevation of the terrain, also at high resolution, giving us the 3D model of the terrain.

Some space enthusiasts have taken the MRO imagery, overlayed it on the terrain model, and the result is some great simulated "bird's eye" views of Mars, as if you were on a plane or a helicopter and took some photos yourself.

Here are some of such images:















No vertical exagerration was used. Mars is really that craggy and mountainous.

You can find more images and "flyover" videos at the Unmanned Spaceflight Forum and this Flickr album.

I hope you like them as much as I do.

Amazing.

No need to dust it with ridiculous claims about artifacts or fake alien ruins, Mars is fantastic enough as it is.

a reply to: wildespace

Awesome work.

The elevation layers in those images seem to be much more detailed than those available in Google Mars for some of the HiRISE strips. I knew about the availability of stereo pairs, but I wasn't aware that they offer processed DTMs:
www.uahirise.org...

Implementing them using Blender/Photoshop is a fantastic idea and the results are incredible. S&F!

a reply to: jeep3r

What's incredible is that those DTMs are created from stereo images, not from radar or altimeter data. I didn't realise how much time and work goes into creating them.

Would love to see them and HiRISE imagery used in a sci-fi movie like Martian.

P.S. Anyone know a good free DTM viewing software? I'd like to have a go at those DTMs myself. Mars has some very interesting land features: h irise

a reply to: wildespace

Beautiful images! Reminds me of Ansel Adams' photography.

soulwaxer

those images are just amazing. thank u for sharing them

I thought the sky was blue on Mars?

a reply to: wildespace

I create DTM's daily from drone imagery.
Download Virtual Surveyor.
It is the easiest to use. You literally upload 2 items - your DTM and the sterio ortho.
Bada bing, you have a 3d model

DP

a reply to: crayzeed

Not on greyscale images, obviously.

Great post as always mate. Stunning pics.

So amazing when it dawn on you that this is another planet

a reply to: wildespace

Beautiful, thanks for sharing. The erosion process on Mars look similar to earth, pic 4 reminds me of the Grand Tetons.

Plate tectonics and Water obviously played a huge role in the shaping of those channels.

There must have been an atmosphere at some point to create that weathering.

I assume the wind and and extremely hot and cold cycles continue to erode this vast landscape.

originally posted by: Observationalist
a reply to: wildespace

The erosion process on Mars look similar to earth.

I agree, but interestingly devoid of glacial erosion - as to be expected.

The Martian atmosphere (for the last 2 billion years or so) has been so rarefied that these processes operate at 'glacial' speed. I suspect it's been essentially unchanged in that timeframe, meaning we're looking at Mars as it (mostly) was 2 billion years ago. It's a geological history lesson within our own solar system!

The fact that we still observe briny outflows, landslides, methane releases and dust devils shows that Mars is not a dead place (at least geologically). A truly fascinating place.

a reply to: OneBigMonkeyToo

indeed my friend
im probaly the only ufologist in the world that thinks so!

originally posted by: wildespace

Anyone know a good free DTM viewing software? I'd like to have a go at those DTMs myself. Mars has some very interesting land features: hirise-pds.lpl.arizona.edu...

As far as I know, there's no direct viewing software available. But I managed to convert the HiRISE maps you linked above into some renders using Blender (click thumbnails below for fullsize HD images):



The renders are based on the original DTM files from the HiRISE page incl. a JP2 image overlay. The cool thing about Blender is that it's a free 3D modeling tool and compiling the HiRISE maps yourself isn't too hard (although some basic Blender knowledge is required). An excellent YouTube tutorial on how to import the data into blender is available here.

a reply to: jeep3r
Thanks for posting those, they are very cool pics. Please feel free to share more if you find DTMs of interesting locations on Mars.

a reply to: wildespace

Here's a small tour featuring landforms at Terby crater:

Click below for fullsize versions:
Image 1 | Image 2 | Image 3 | Image 4 | Image 5

Derived from digital terrain model available here: www.uahirise.org...

a reply to: jeep3r

Can we get a video?

originally posted by: jeep3r
a reply to: wildespace

Here's a small tour featuring landforms at Terby crater:

Click below for fullsize versions:
Image 1 | Image 2 | Image 3 | Image 4 | Image 5

Derived from digital terrain model available here: www.uahirise.org...

Nice work mate.

By the way, you guys might want to look into QGIS. Free and amazing

originally posted by: ArMaP
a reply to: jeep3r

Can we get a video?

I'll see what I can do, should be possible...