Gaia ? I thought Milla Jovovich was the 5th element !

Pixel counts of the (full?) res HiRise version that have been linked in this thread:

Endurance = 634 pixels across = 200 m = 3.2 pixels/m
Eagle = 99 pixels across = 30 m = 3.3 pixels/m
Oppy rover = 12 pixels across (some could be shadow) = 2.3 m = <5.2 pixels/m

I'll use 3.3 pixels/m as an estimate for the full res HiRise images we've been dealing with. (This makes the big scary dune wavelength = 22 pixels = 6.6 m wavelength = 3 Oppy lengths)

In the S Victoria HiRise region there is a very cute crater that is about 180 pixels diameter = ca. 55 m. We can use this as a measuring stick for the 50 m corridor.
(Does this little guy have a name?)
Click to view attachment

-Mike

That crater's not only cute, it looks like a classic cluster impact. Good place to look for pieces of impactor!
I'd give it a gold star.

Yes, I agree that this "bad boy" deserves a closer look if it can be reached without excessive risk. (See posts #143, #209, and #222.)

If someone were to provide me with a nice image directly to the south of the one shown in post #222, I can show you how one person believes we can get there.

While Sagan's Contact remains my all time favorite science fiction story; Leeloo, Bruce Willis, and the 5th Element are also on my favorites list.

Trying to minimize the red/blue areas and maximize the green (smooth low-ripple sand), I whipped up some possible routes that have the longest corridors of "green" smooth sand. These are very risk averse. (Even minimizing pavement with possible dune ripples or cracks)

The boxes are ca. 50 m on a side. (4 boxes would be a good day of driving).

Black boxes show a preferred route, yellow acceptable routes, orange routes are still risk-averse but may cross a few tougher areas or be longer.
Click to view attachment

These were all checked by myself in the hi-res imagery. (Yup, smooth sand).

I also uploaded higher-resolution images and overlays on the speedyshare server (the colored boxes on the hi-res maps didn’t transfer over very well)::
Proposed routes overlaid on HiRise imagery at 12.5% resolution (30.2 Mb .tif file): http://www.speedyshare.com/569973455.html
Proposed routes overlaid on colorized differential shift graphic with terrain overlay at 12.5% resolution (30.2 Mb .tif file): http://www.speedyshare.com/378217128.html
Proposed routes overlaid on colorized differential-shift terrain map with no overlay at 12.5% resolution (30.2 Mb .tif file): http://www.speedyshare.com/125370328.html

-Mike

AFAIK, these map projected HiRISE pictures have a resolution of 25cm/pix (4 pix/m). Check the "observation toolbox" for e.g. PSP_001414_1780 and PSP_009141_1780.

Did you take into account that driving directly north-south between larger ripples may be easier than driving diagonally across smaller ripples? I might have chosen a route that goes directly south where ripples are questionable and goes southeastish where the driving is good. But I guess the question of how small do ripples need to be before we can safely cross them diagonally is something a rover driver knows best...

Mike - as soon as you get off the green areas, you are limited in the direction you can move, with due south being preferred, and absolutely essential as the terrain gets rougher. I think your preferred route would actually be very difficult where you head eastwards off the Victoria ejecta.

There are three south-pointing extensions of the smooth ejecta, south of the crater. Any one will give you a good start, but I think the western one gives a shorter route through the worst area.


Phil

The proposed routes were designed to allow maximum drive direction flexibility and safety within the 50 m box. I tried my best to avoid any dune crests. My goal was to find the most "parking lot"-like terrain possible. (....must...avoid...red...zones....)

While a straight S course through a bad section (red zone) might be easier (and faster), extra-careful planning will be necessary. And Oppy won't be able to deviate easily from inside a deep trough.

However one gets through the Victoria S debris apron, the intersection point of all the proposed paths looks like the natural "drain" leading towards the green parking lot terrain in the SE section of the image.


-Mike

Thanks, Eduardo!

Shame on me for not checking the HiRise site. But I am pretty pleased that based on a rough estimate I came up with a value only 21% different from the actual value.

The corrected numbers give a big scary dune wavelength of 22 pixels = 5.5 m

Here is a corrected image of the "50 m crater" with a more accurate scale bar:
Click to view attachment

-Mike

Fascinating... I would have thought the three, smooth and southerly trending surfaces would be the initial way to go. Now, I am not so sure. It will be interesting to see where Opportunity wanders.

Well, it finally happened. I just got off the the phone with Project Management and in spite of me stating pretty clearly and more than once that my participation in this forum is done on a personal level, not in my official position at JPL I have been told to stop. I am truly sorry and pretty upset, but as I said at the beginning I love my job and intend to keep it. It has been fun while it lasted.

Paolo

Thank you, Paolo. It seemed to good to last, frankly, but it was indeed fun while it lasted. Your contributions were hugely appreciated.

P.S. Whenever we see a 130 meter plus drive, we'll think of you

Well at least we know "Project Management" still checks in here now and then.

I will join Mike in thanking you as well Paolo.

Thank you for a thrilling educational adventure, Paolo!
I've been a friend of JPL all my life, but now I'm feeling like a dedicated partner, a devout supporter for the rest of my life.

Shaka

...silly but strangely apropos...

"Happy trails to you, until we meet again.
Happy trails to you, keep smilin' until then.
Who cares about the clouds when we're together?
Just sing a song and bring the sunny weather.
Happy trails to you, 'till we meet again.

Some trails are happy ones,
Others are blue.
It's the way you ride the trail that counts,
Here's a happy one for you.

Happy trails to you, until we meet again.
Happy trails to you, keep smilin' until then.
Who cares about the clouds when we're together?
Just sing a song and bring the sunny weather.

Happy trails to you, 'till we meet again."

True, but it doesn't seem the same without Roy and Dale singing it.
Myself, I'd like to sing a chorus of For he's a jolly good fellow. to Paolo.

Well I can't argue with any of that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVq9-GtlvLU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MsKW84b-7E

My main hope is that JPL understands how many dedicated friends (yes, and partners) Paolo made for his organization.

In retrospect, I guess I'd have to agree with mhoward that it was too good to last.

(trailing quotation mark purposely omitted)

Beauford: I think you succinctly captured something strangely apropos about the situation in which we find ourselves. I also enjoyed the relevant Youtube videos. Thanks.

So, where does the discussion go from here? It seems that it would be appropriate to ask where this short-lived relationship went wrong. Clearly we have a number of contributing members here that are rather closely involved with space exploration missions from numerous countries and international collaborations all over the planet. Our most recent friend and partner may have pushed the envelope further than others. But where did he cross the line? Was it the frequency of postings, the request for active participation and suggestions, his public notoriety, or what?

Hey! I thought it was really getting fun. What went wrong in this game?

...or maybe too good NOT to last.

It should (and will) go on as it did before. It's the nature of this beast. Unfortunately, it looks like it will do in the absence of one "really fun" feedback loop.

Sorry, but I can't help myself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xv6lHwWwO3w

Oh the irony.

(...no disrespect intended to anyone, especially Paolo.)

That's a real shame, Paolo. Very sad that you can't continue to play such an active part in the discussions here on UMSF, but I'm sure you'll be looking in on us often, and I'm also sure that many people here would like to thank you for allowing us to be a part of the MER adventure, indirectly, for a while. Even if the conversation has to stop now, I think you know that we'll all be walking alongside Oppy, and you, as the road to Endeavour opens up before us - whoever maps it out, and how.

Safe driving Paolo!

First of all, thanks Paolo for the opportunity (no pun) given to this group to participate in the MER project.

> So, where does the discussion go from here?

Speaking of "drivability analysis", the topic (imo) is almost finished unless someone wants to try a new technic or improve its own one.
Speaking of after "drivability analysis", well, we should go back to "back-seat driving mode".

Thank you Paolo for the opportunity to share, just for a little while, a glimps of the life of a rover driver!

Have a safe driving and we will sit back-seat as usual, and you can be sure we will be just as noisy as before

Can someone help me by posting an image with approximately the same dimensions and resolution as the one shown in my post #335 in this thread? I would like the top center of the new image to be located near the SE corner of the image in #335. I'm afraid I do not have the capability of extracting such an image from the large source files.

Such a favor would help me fantasize about what course I would sail if I had the chance.

I imagined a lot of things as a kid, but never that I might have the means to sit around at home and plan the exploration of another planet while having a beer. Even though it's just fantasy, "...priceless."

Thanks in advance if this comes into existence.

I think it probably will, Beau, I have very similar fantasies.
The program is moving that way: Oppy Update:

Overnight, members of my admin team 'hid' (i.e. flagged as for review) a post, and replies to it, that was really not helpful in this situation. After review, I agree with my fellow admins that that it should be deleted - and the responses to it no loner made sense, so they have also been culled.

A PM explaining why has been sent.

And thank you for the kind, considerate contribution by someone simply saying 'welcome to UMSF' when the member in question asked where his post had gone. Yes - this is how we run things here - no one is forcing you to be a part of it.

Perhaps you can do it by yourself given the right tools. It's not so difficult.
The background image used on my route map (the source for your post #335) is PSP_009141_1780_RED, and more specifically the JPEG2000 image under the JP2 QUICKLOOK tab (warning: it's a 590MB file!). To view these JP2 pictures I'm using OpenEV; it manages the huge images pretty decently in terms of CPU and memory usage. A nice feature of this tool is that you can export parts of the image in JPEG format and that's what I'm doing for the route map. The current background is a crop from the big picture starting at (11500, 34000) covering 4000 x 8000 pixels and then reduced to half-size because the original map-projected image is at 25cm/pix while the map is as 50cm/pix.
To get the image you want you would have to:
- Open the big picture with OpenEV
- Select File > Export
- Select the proper output filename and output format
- Select "Advanced Options" and "Window Input File"
- Select the area you want to extract: 34000, 11500, 8000, 4000 for the current route map background and 42000, 13500, 8000, 4000 for the one you are looking for.
- Select Export and voila!

When we were driving from Erebus to Victoria, I do not remember one of us saying sort of "if I was the driver, from where we are today I would choose to go this way for next drive". Instead we were sometimes challenging Eduardo on "his" route map.
After Paolo's (hi Paolo!) too brief participation, I'm wondering if the "where does the discussion go from here?" could still lead us to discuss, may be in a new topic which way WE (UMSF'ers) actualy would go next drive from where Oppy will be from previous drive.
I think it'll be fun, Paolo will not participate directly, but it'll be a little bit more than a back seat driving.
This will never decrease the BIG interest to find out where Oppy actulay drove i.e. Eduardo's route map.

I agree, also I think we should continue the 'analysis' as soon as the new HiRISE images arrive, for this is why we created them, a lot of the work we did on the existing images was in preparation to releasing the same tools on the new HiRISE images, and I think we should just complete this task, whether or not Paolo is actually reading or using them, at least it will give us a good impression on what we can expect on the road to Endeavour. We can discuss our own suggestions and Eduardo's map will show us whether the silent rover drivers agreed

Absofrickinlutely

(and absofrickinlutely should absofrickinlutely be in the dictionary)

it is: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?...sofrickinlutely

frickin ..."is an alternative for those of us too classy to use the "f..." word". Sometimes I'd wish not have to be so classy in public forums.

And a second to that as well!

-- Pertinax

Actually, we had that discussion.
You might remember the "proposed path" on the older route map, and I remember to draw that one exactly while we were talking about this same topic.

Which is what we've more or less been doing all along. We did it with Spirit ground images, where we traced out routes to the horizon in front of us, and we did it from above with Opportunity going back to the (very fine) MGS cPROTO images that were used back then.

Now onward! (directly due South then slightly East for 500km meters, then South again....)

Ah ah ah, Dan, good try! Nevertheless, I predict, You'll NEVER make it with the kms versus miles!

Thanks for the precision, it comes back to mind now. So, let's says that at this time we hoped "they" were watching us. Now we know they do!

Thank you Paolo!

The last few weeks have been an absolute blast. Seeing the efforts put into building terrain models, proposing routes, and the back and forth discussion and movement of data and analysis products happening with members around the planet has been truly inspiring. Your helpful comments and challenges have spurred UMSF to a new level.

I completely agree with Geert's comments - now that we've started this analysis, it makes perfect sense to continue. We may no longer have benefit of your input, but the products of our efforts will still be available for anyone interested.

(And on a personal level, I know I'll start following Oppy's progress towards Endeavour much more closely, no matter what path is chosen!)

-Mike

... and come on, as if we're going to stop now... of course we'll just carry on, if only to see how closely our chosen path follows the path eventually taken to Endeavour!

(of course, when I say "we" I mean "those forum members who have the knowledge and expertise to do all this incredible stuff"... I'm just happy to sit back and watch you all )

Come on Stu, I'm sure you're not going to let the "technicians" (no offense ) "choose" Oppy's route without giving your own opinion.

Yep, I am. I'm just a passenger on this ride. I am more than happy to trust the choice of route to people with the right experience and tech and software, leaving me to make pretty pictures of the scenery along the way. I know my limits.

OK I guess the JPL management leaves us no other choice. Let's open a new thread about uploading driving commands and hacking into the DSN....

Grazie mille per averci lasciato accompagnarti un po' durante l'avventura! Non c'e amarezza da questa parte, soltanto gioia per aver potuto avere un contatto un po' piu stretto con te e gli altri nostri eroi della squadra MER. Buon proseguimento, stiamo con voi!

Overlay of my proposed paths onto the various UMSF terrain models:
Click to view attachment

-Mike

Thanks, Mike. I continue to enjoy your useful comparison montages. I guess all we need to do now is relax in the back seat and see where the first part of the ride takes us.

I have been busy making the routefinding software more 'intelligent', this is the latest version of the computer-generated route suggestion, using the standard deviation trick. There are still several situations were seemingly the software gets confused but the general trend seems to be okay. Basically I just enter a departure position and a destination position and then let the software calculate the smoothest route.

Click to view attachment

Note I had to reduce the size of the image a bit in order to fit within the 1 Mb limit, the original calculation was done from 1 mtr/pixel.

Gotta love the scoot thru that small crater about 3/4 of the way down the route. Tweaking the software so that it correctly skirts that crater could be an early adjustment with clear positive results.

True, the software is basically designed to navigate through ripples, it more or less recognizes craters but somehow that small crater seems to escape its attention ;-). But, as has been said many times before, there is no way you can depend on computer-routefinding using only the HiRISE image-information, you will always need human eyes to find the correct route, I'm already happy that the software at least seems to agree in keeping as much as possible to the 'green' fields in the various analysis. Following the most westerly 'ray' of reasonable smooth terrain down south looks to me also the most favorable choice, problem remains that you will need to cross a patch of more rough terrain to get to the nearest 'green' field.