hello again... I am almost done with the cam mast.. it's almost full detailed now, only things missing are the tide-ups that hold the cable... here is a new render I did while testing...

I remembered I saw this project somewhere, but having not stored any link, I looked long for it... around, in 3d modelling forums! I couldn't remember I found it into an astronomy forum!
It would be really nice to see a textured render, now that most part of the hard work is eventually over!

well, its good to know that many of you support my work and are patient enough to wait for the project to end. Truth is I've been tired with it from times to times but now that it's almost done I feel like modeling all the time...

..however I am in the middle of many things - redecorating my home, work, second job, etc - so I model whenever I have time. Soon I will settle down and have more than enough time. Trying to take it slow - one step at a time because I know that if I happen to abandon a session of modeling and am not happy with it I'll be thinking about it all day. Too much anxiety huh? :/

Keep visiting back though

Lovely work scooterlord! A real labour of love! wow!

Hello everyone, I know it's been quite some time that anyone has heard from me, but in case anyone cares I am still alive. A lot of stuff going on, and I am not that excited to work on 3d. I take it really slow, because it has been painstakingly hard. Anyway, here is a new render, I am trying to sort out the cables from the reference photos, unfortunately the 2 mers are different one from another and it's kinda tough to make out what is going where. Here is my progress so far, I keep doing stuff and deleting, it's a bit difficult to have everything like you want it; cables look a bit thin, but I will sort this out during the rendering process. Enjoy!




Top cables will be remodeled; their path is completely off.. probably many of these will be remodeled till I am done with them..

Once the model is done, I will immediately start rendering; rendering is a beautiful process and although it takes quite some time, I really enjoy creating textures, etc and most importantly I enjoy the fruit of my labour... Would love to hear some comments

I am in total awe of the amount of work this is and how well you have done it. I've never seen anyone try to render cable bundles in this much detail. Even those of us building the hardware rarely try to model them in any but the most schematic terms. For example, if you look at the external harnessing on MAHLI -- http://www.msss.com/msl/mahli/index.html -- we never tried to model any of that.

That said, and this is not a criticism at all, I note that you don't seem to have modeled the flex that connects the navcam/hazcam optical head to the main body of the electronics. http://marswatch.astro.cornell.edu/pancam_...ng_testing.html has some pictures of the Pancam that may be of use (the electronics are the same between Pancam, navcam, and hazcam.)

gee! that was quick!

thanks for your kind words first of all. Cable harnesses are b*tches to model and that is why the program I am working on doesn't utilize any physics - I don't know if any of 3ds, or maya do now, but anyway mine doesn't. Which means that you have to individually model each cable and they end up one going through the other, etc, their paths cross in other words. Let alone I don't have clear reference, or even reference photos of the same mer. Besides the 2 mers, the photos I collected have the harnesses tied up in different parts of the actual building process of the mer, so I have to decide which fits me best...

..as for the flexes, I leave them for the end. I know a lof of things are missing, but, I take it one step at a time. I am also lacking hga cabling, cables on the top side of the mer (I finished modeling the reflecting surface though) and lots and lots of other stuff. I thought I was almost done but since my eye is familiarized with the mer from all those hours of just gazing at them, I keep finding new details... oh, well... :/

Scooterlord,
Your work is awe-inspiring. I've downloaded Blender and messed around a bit for fun, but this is just amazing. Thanks for the time you are spending on this!

Hello there..

long time no see, I know, but the modeling process is not dead! It seems like I found my way out of the dead-end concerning the cables. I *roughly* sorted them out and thought I'd share a double-render, just for the people still interested in this. I still have the rear part of the mer cables to model, but I think I have reference I can walk-through easily (I HOPE) and after the rough modeling of the cables, I will detail model, detail the rest few details I am missing of the whole model and start texturing!

I am a bit concerned about the rendering process, since I only load part of the model every now and then, but my pc struggles already (Quad Core Q9550, 3Gb Ram).. oh, well, I'll deal with that when the time comes!



one more render...

Scooter,
Glad to see you're still working on it! I can't wait for the finished product.

Well, after all this time, I can't wait to see it finished myself! I've been having this at the back of my mind all this time, even when I wasn't working on it. Last part I'll be having trouble with is seeing where the cables meet at the end, and the detailing of the cables. Everything else is done! I haven't posted any renders of the top side of the mer, but is finished, all polygoned, I won't have it textured after all, to keep the details. It looks awesome, but it's just too big a file even to quick-render it...

...and last but not least, I am also glad that some of you are still interested in the project.

Interested? Astonished. That IDD is just superb.

That thing is amazing! Great Work Scooterlord! Cant wait to see the finished product

Heh, looks nice, doesn't it? It just some random render using a random material. Trust me, when I'm done with it it will look a lot better. I did some test renders on the cables' material as well, and looks damn well...

I am between 3 renderers now... one is SUPER EXTRA WOW quality, but is really slow... I mean so slow you can't even test-render with it (maxwell) but has full material library, then there's brazil, which I know inside-out, but still takes a lot of time to render and create materials and then there's keyshot that's ULTRA FAST (the idd render was done using keyshot and took like just a minute (!!) to render) but I need to learn the material editor, which doesn't look very versatile...

I hope I find some time later tonight to sort-out the rest of the cables and hopefully model some..

It's AMAZING, just AMAZING !!!

Scooterlord you should probably check in on the MER Magnets discussion before you finish. Apparently there's no avoiding depicting your model as distinctly Spirit or Opportunity. Unless of course you decide to choose an intermediate configuration for the magnet that represents neither completed rover.

Hm, although I think I have done the model by using as much accuracy I could get by the photos, such small details might be overlooked. One has to see and compare pic with render to sort out details, and that would probably be people from this forum. Others will be excited by the level of detail no matter if it compares well to the true thing.. as I said, a lot STILL to be done, I'll be really happy once I am done with the cables. The cable configuration I am using will probably correspond to one of the two mers, so I'll use those pics for reference to finish the rest of the model..

So.. now I have these stuff to sort out.. anyone care to help? :PPpp Let a marathon of loooooong hours of study of sorting out begin...



I just noticed and wonder if anyone in here knows where the cables going at the bottom end. Do they go under the mer? :/ I have the next photo:



..and see BILLIONS of cables under there, but do they stay there? They seem to be connected to the outer shell, do they disconnect later and come with the mer? There seems to be some kind of net holding them..

...and this is what I have from the rear pancam:



..where do these cables go? :S

Last but not least, I just found some photos that show the rover in testing conditions:



..no cables here either. Well, this specific one might be naked because it's a test-mer or something. but it still makes me wonder. They have all of the mer's equipment connected, so why not have everything? :/


Hm.. just came across this:



...this picture shows the underbelly of the mars rover that is on mars. It shows NOTHING under it. No cables at all. So, where do the cables go? Do they disconnect after th landing? Any help is welcome!

I'm pretty sure there are no cables that run along the underside of the WEB, we didn't hear anything about cable hazards during the extraction at Troy (where the underside MI pan you posted was taken).

I'm not sure which cables you are worried about in the first image. The ones in the bottom-centre that go up, across then back down again, are part of the lander rather than part of the rover. It's worth comparing that image with the 'empty nest' pan the same cables are sticking up on the left.


James

I am mostly worried about the cables on the back right side of the mer, the ones that are also shown in the third image (from the pancam view) and the 5-6 others that are tied perpendicular one to another...they seem to go downwards. Then what? Do they 'disconnect' in some way from the lander and be with no ends?

From the photos it looks like they are using that harness for remote controlling the mer :/ James, if you happen to know any more info, I would be glad to hear it. If I knew what was going on, I would have finished the project like a year ago..

Heya! Anyone still around here?

Long time no see once more, looks like it's been almost a year since a good update of the project. Well, here it is. After hundreds of hours of studying here is a quick render of the progress concerning the cables. I am done with the front cables of the mer *minus the details*. Detailing is the easy part. Once I gain psyc strength I am off to start the rear part. Photos of the rear of the mer are very sparse and very messy but since I made it this far seems like nothing is impossible. I sorted out a few cables already.

Anyway, awaiting your feedback..

Look's Very Nice! . Just one question, will you eventually add surfaces to the IDD arm cutouts as well as add a bottom to the web?

...uhm... "bottom to the web"? what do you mean?

and I cant understand whether you mean add textures to the idd arm or something else? of course I will... the result is meant to be... the mer as in a photo... unless you mean something different :/

Really stunning work, Scoot. You're one of the most patient people I've ever seen!

..well, I am fresh out of patience, that's why this is taking forver

Hi scooterlord, congratulations for your last piece of work, I would like to go back to the missing cables question (I discovered the posts only now!).
If you look carefully to the pictures from rear hazcam and to the 'empty nest' pan (from James post), you will notice that the cables were going down from MER to the lander and are cut; the cut is near the retention mechanism and is probably made with a pyro system after landing (any further detail from someone more expert than me?)... I hope this can help you!

dilo, cool, that's what I was thinking myself, because in the "roving mars" documentary I saw no cables underneath the mer. I would take a look at the reference I have later to see the cuts - haven't studied them yet, I take things one step at a time, but if you happen to have any handy reference photos, please upload them Any rear reference photos are welcome..

After going back to post #97 in this thread, I can see that you had what I was talking about rendered fully . What I was talking about were those cutout spaces in the WEB that the IDD stows into. Also, what I meant by the "bottom to the web", I could see from looking through the arm cutouts in the WEB, that you had no surfaces to the bottom of the rover's WEB. But yeah, it looks like you just didn't render the area's I was talking about in your latest update .

@James:

Feels good to see that people are still interested in this and thevthread is still alive. I can promise you that when it is done you'll struggle to make out if it's the real thing or not

Scooterlord,
We are still very interested, believe me!

Yes, I've been a-gasp since the first post all those years ago !

...and here is one better quality render of the left side...

Scooterlord,
Have you looked at Mars Science Lab at all yet? Might want to get in requests for pictures of key areas now before they close her up!

hendric: uhm... what? what am I looking for? Are we talking about the old rovers? where? url?

This is … EPIC !!

Thanks for all your hard working, this is very amazing !

Sorry! I mean Curiosity, the follow up to MER. It's currently being put together at JPL:

http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/

Don't distract the guy, for goodness sake

Lol! Damn I was so excited for a moment... Thats ok though :/ I ll find my way through all this

Awesome work, scooterlord. I've done 3d modeling in the past - oh my gosh, what you're doing is incredibly detailed and tedious labor...

To illustrate Dilo's point, here is an animation of the cable cutting process. There are several stages; some cables are cut when the rover gets up on its wheels. Others are cut after.

You can see 4 frames here - between frames 1 and 2 the rover gets up, and you can see that the cables on the right side are cut at this point. Between frames 3 and 4 the bundle is cut on the left side.



After the rover rises, you can see the pyro mechanisms where the cables used to connect to:



Here you can see some of the cable bundles going from the rover down to the lander. The big loop of cables that goes up and down is actually part of the lander.
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA04848.jpg

Very helpful post indeed!

But I also need a little guidance here. So, the pyro mechanism that cuts the cables is the thing on the left side on the animated gif with the holes? How exactly does it cut it? Since it's called pyro I suppose it burns it, but I need this info for modeling issues.

I mean are the cables cut INSIDE those holes? Meaning that no cables come under it after the rover leaves its lander?

Moreover I am having SERIOUS trouble making out stuff in the following image, if anyone knows what's going on, please draw a couple of lines and repost, I am staring at the 3 reference photos for a few days now and I can't gather enough information to start.. :/





Facts:

a) I know that from the front left side of the mer comes a 'fat' set of multiple cables, that connect somewhere at the rear. I think its the cable that goes round right in the middle of the red circle.

From other reference photos I can make out that to that white box at the left of the circle connect 3 cables, which I don't know where they come from. Plus, there is a cable wrapped arround it.

c) I suppose (but can't tell for sure) that all the cables from the HGA are joined into the fat set of cables that go towards the bottom-right side of the red circle and then are wrapped in foil and go to the right side of the mer.

What I am missing is information about the actual parts of the rover. For instance if I knew that this white box there is the 'HGA Controller' I would try to follow the cables routes from the HGA to this box. However I have no idea what that is!

Last, although I am working on this rover I also study reference from the other rover just to make-out the starts-ends of the cables, making it easier to predict their routes. Supposingly, in both mers the parts are the same, cables are connected to the same slots, and I assume that ONLY the routes are changed...

Looks like I am going to need an anxious month of studying before starting to actually model anything.

The pyro is a small explosive, it pushes a sharp shear edge to cut the cables. Remember if they were not cut the rover would have been a lander, so the system have to be very very reliable.


http://exploration.nasa.gov/documents/repo..._From_Pyros.pdf

I had never seen that before....boom !

So, hm, cool

So, it is safe to assume that the holes are used for allowance to oxygen for the explosion to take place. Can someone please verify this?


If so, I'll get away with not modeling a few stuff

Most explosive compounds (other than gas or hydrocarbons) do not need external oxygen. They often have NO2 groups in them that rearrange to give N2, CO2 and other components. Think of nitroglycerin. I don't actually know what type compounds are used for pyros, but sure they do not need external O2.

Speaking about pyros, I've marked up your image:

The metal piece in the yellow circle is the pyro assembly.
The cables going through the pyros are indicated by two pink lines (same ones that are on the right hand side in the animation being cut).
The red circle shows the trigger connections to the pyros, and they go where the red arrows are pointing. This picture shows them disconnected during assembly for obvious reasons - they are most likely connected at the very last stage of the assembly process.

Cool! So i understood correctly! If any of you happens to know anything about the cables at the rear side, please share!

Hello again,

I'm back and working on the rover with great excitement! Probably due to the fact I got a new pc and I can FINALLY open the rover file without any problems; I got an i7-960 with 6gb 1600Mhz Ram, so, work is getting done quite fluidly. It's the first time that I can merge the seperate files into one and actually SEE the whole model. 2gb of ram are consumed just to open the file. I started detailing the whole thing, progress looks really nice - as expected. Here are a couple of renders just to take a peek of what kind of detail you should expect in the final model. The shown models are modeling-wise finalized and only need texturing.





With the current pace of progress I might be done by the end of this year (hopefully!). It's a lot more work than I could possibly have imagined. About 5% of my brain will be released since I dedicate it to think of this project no matter what I am doing.

Let me be the first to say: Wow.

Just plain great!!

I think you'll finish about the time oppy makes it's first great discovery at endeavour crater.

Well, here I am, working at full speed providing with one more new render of the model-wise finalized mer idd. I will continue working to finalize each part step-by-step with full details before texturing. Here it is, comments welcome as always

Those ITAR agents are gonna be banging on your door any time now!

Phil