Maestro: look at Mars the way NASA does

This is the actual software NASA uses for the rover on Mars. You can download the software from this link:

Maestro software
Dataset

You need both the application itself and the apropriate dataset, also available on that site. This software works on Windows, Linux and OSx.

There is a manual available:
Online manual

If you just want the pictures:

The first image alongside shows what the opening screen looks like. You don't want to stay there long. You want to see the Mars photos. To do that, click on the bar marked "Go to Spirit's Landing Site." That starts the Conductor application, which allows you to view data from the Mars probe the same way NASA's engineers are viewing it. It's like a Web photo gallery on steroids. You can forward and reverse the tour and zoom in and out to your heart's content.

By the way, The IRC channel (#maestro on irc.freenode.net) for Maestro is crowded and friendly and has several NASA folk there to answer questions about the project. The most popular discussion this morning, when more than 150 were on the channel, was the length of time it took for commands sent from the control center to reach Mars -- nine minutes, if I recall correctly.

[edit on 28-8-2008 by sn00daard]

reply to post by sn00daard


Awesome find mate! Its like exploring mars for yourself. I think I might quit my job, leave my wife and play with this for the next decade!!! Mind you I said that when the Megadrive came out!!!!

;-)

Outstanding find! S & F your way...

I just finished the downloads...looks like there's a learning curve on the app....

Good; it'll keep me off the proverbial streets.

Nice...

The latest version of Maestro is version 2004_01, dated 12/31/2003.

Somehow I am trying very hard to digest that severely outdated version of the software. I simply refuse to believe that in five (5) years no changes to image algorithms were made, no improvements to image processing, no code clean-ups and no bug fixes, no...

Even a bigger kicker is that 2004.01 (Public), especially this coming from JPL, a publicly financed and paid for institution. Yes folks, your hard earned tax dollars are at work, albeit five years old. But your are dumb sheep so you won't notice the difference anyway, right?

I suppose if it was the Military it would say 1983.01 (Public), or worse...

[edit on 28-8-2008 by amigo]

Yea the program is pretty advanced, it is the actual program NASA uses after all. Be sure to have a look through the manual i posted if you want to see what it is you can do with the program. There are section about "Creating color composite images" and "Viewing images in 3D" among others.

I was quite disapointed about the number of included photos though; I'm having a look around to see if it is possible to add those images from the website to view them in Maestro, now THAT would be cool.
Are these images the biggest ones available btw?

reply to post by amigo

You are right, hadn't payed much attention to it. The project has been discontinued. Too bad.

October 25, 2004: The last two datasets, Spirit 12 and Opportunity 10 have been completed. These provide a glimpse of the exploration still continuing under the extended mission. Unfortunately, we do not anticipate any further updates.

April 21, 2004: Maestro has been revived! We received great news this morning -- new Maestro funding has been approved to continue production of Maestro data releases. Our sponsors have been very pleased with the reception of Maestro by the public and want to see our outreach effort continue through the entire mission. The new releases will be less frequent but will cover a longer period of time. Please check back for new updates.