Mars Video Uses Real Data To Take You Through Giant Canyon

Adrian Lark, founder of Mars3D.com, has created a virtual 'flyover' video of the martian landscape using image data collected by NASA's HiRISE (High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment), the most powerful camera ever sent into space. The stunning animation shows Mars's southwest Candor Chasma. The creator says of the video and its imagery:

The spatial resolution is 1 meter for the altimetry data and 0.25 meters for the image data. There is no vertical exaggeration. The animation was created using Mars Explorer and was captured in realtime.

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[edit on 16-3-2010 by TV_Nation]

Stumbled across this cool video of mars' landscape and thought some others might enjoy it also.

I love anything to do with space and this is the best view of the landscape of mars I have seen even though it is just an animation.



[edit on 16-3-2010 by TV_Nation]

mars is not all red though

A few ideas what could/should be done with that data:

Make a "Google Mars" program so people can explore it, and post interesting things they find.

Use that 3D environment as a back drop for flight simulator video game.

Put in 3D like Avatar, so people can sit in theater and go "Wow!"

You can already view mars (as well as the moon and the stars) in google earth, though I don't believe google mars has any elevation, just pictures on the mars sphere. But yea, watching it in 3d in a theater would be amazing.

Thanks for posting this OP, virtual exploration is always great.

For anyone interested. You can download the Digital Terrain Models (DTM's) from the HiRISE site here.

I've been playing around with the Candor Chasma one as well. It's neat stuff.

Originally posted by heineken
mars is not all red though

No, but when you're working with a single grey scale image as a texture, it's just easier to apply an orangy/brown colour to the entire image. Especially when you're working with the 25cm/pixel resolution image. It's massive, both in file size and in pixel dimensions. It makes photoshop slow to a crawl for me anyway.

Originally posted by harrytuttle
Make a "Google Mars" program so people can explore it, and post interesting things they find.

Use that 3D environment as a back drop for flight simulator video game.

As already stated by AliBruh, Google Earth already has a 3d Mars in it. You can also fly around on Mars with Google Earth (Ctrl + Alt + A to activate it.). You can also go to Mars3d.com website and download the Mars Explorer program which lets you fly or drive on the surface of Mars. Which is what was used to make this video.