sol34 update: larger airfield to avoid crowding, simulated tracks 2.7m wide from outer edge to outer edge (I think more correct), track marks 30cm wide. Flight zone 30m wide.

full map:

A special map for the area where the belly pan and debris shield were dropped. This is another use for the circular panoramas - they can be warped a bit to fit a HiRISE (or descent camera) image base.

Phil

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Here's the latest addition to the Google Mars project I've been working on:

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Basicly, it's an image browser for Google Earth that organizes available raw images according to their geographical coordinates. The coordinates are derived from the image metadata. The raw images are generally released prior to updates to the "Where is Perseverance?" page so this gives advance knowledge of the rover position as determined by the navigation team. In any case, you can just view the images and make your own determination as I like to do.

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The following web page contains further information and downloads:

http://vps78674.vps.ovh.ca/Mars2020/GoogleMars/

Mark

Interesting! Thanks.
Here is a map update for sol 43.
Phil
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I have added recent drives and the helicopter deployment to my close-up map.
Phil
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That's great, thank you!

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Sol 44 3D map view roughly matching today's self portrait.

We had a good drive on sol 47, probably about as long as the longest one to date at 35-40 m or so - I don't know the path at the start of the drive yet. We don't have a full panorama yet but the location should be fairly good.

Phil

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I mentioned in my last post that the raw-image metadata can be used to plot the position of the rover prior to the official geojson track being available and here's an example for sol 47. Image locations are the blue squares:

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These coordinates appear to be based on the rover's dead reckoning abilities. Once the official track comes out with the latest localization, the image locations can be refined by distributing the error along the last traverse. This is all discussed (in great detail) in this oft-mentioned document.

One other interesting thing to note is that a stereo pair of Navcam images are generally downlinked 7-8 meters prior to the spot where the rover stops. Presumably this is an easy way to get an idea of what exactly is under the rover.

Perseverance has moved 38.43 meters on Sol 47. In total, it has already covered a distance of 229.74 meters.

Another drive on sol 48, getting closer to the overlook.
Phil
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Sol 49 - closer to the overlook, but not yet at the exact point denoted earlier. I don't suppose they really have to worry about being exactly on it. This location comes from the Hazcam projection I just posted in the Early Drives thread.

Phil
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Sol 52 update. Flight set up (almost?) complete.

And my map for sol 52.
Phil

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I had been away from my qgis setup. Here my update for sol 59, with new labels:

and the full map:

I tried my best to register the high resolution helicopter overhead perspective, using about 40 control points:



The helicopter lens seems to be wide angle, fish-eye, with heavy distortion away from the center. So I used rubber sheeting ( thin plate spline ) to generate a map:



Since I did not use the tracks for referencing, the good match between the actual and simulated tacks shows that referencing of the rocks went well, and that the base map was also well registered.

I registered the second oblique helicopter view along the flight zone, clipping the highly distorted, more distant view. Here is a composite map of the flight zone which Ingenuity traversed to today, probably for about 50m.

A short drive which I was not expecting on sol 65, pointed out by Paul in the other thread... Using Navcams I find a location hastily mapped here. I will fix up the base later.

Phil

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For what it's worth I registered the third helicopter perspective (to the west) to the map:



Here the larger flight zone:

I'd say its worth a lot Andreas. Thanks.

Thanks. Since I used rocks and pavement patterns to register the images to the EDL basemap, it was an interesting exercise to get to know a large number of these features more closely in the vicinity of the airfield, and some larger ones in the distance. With real photogrammetry and knowledge of the lens and camera orientation one could do a better job but this is pretty good on a cm scale.

Updated maps to sol66:



full map:

Just to think, we are mapping the first controlled flight paths on Mars!

I will have a map of flight paths eventually! For now an update after a short drive on sol 66, well behind Andreas in getting to this. I am reverting to a smaller scale map until I have a better sense of where we are going.
The offset between real positions and the JPL map continues - it's about 1 rover length. The maps on here are all corrected.
Phil
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A mosaic of the four Ingenuity images, registered to a base map:



I used Thomas' straightened version (thanks !) hoping that it would behave favorably in the distance but I had to crop anyways. (In fact, I think it made interpolating between control points perhaps less robust than the original would have.)

Good stuff, Andreas!
Here is my more detailed map updated to sol 69. I will add descent images to the lower part soon.
Phil
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Google Mars for sol 72:

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Position is dead reckoning but looks within a meter or two.

Good location! Here's my version.
Phil
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another take:

A short drive on sol 73 crosses a sandy patch as shown at small scale here. The sites indicated by squares are where arm instruments were apparently used, though without daily updates I don't know much.

Phil
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A sol73 map using the updated geojson for the traverse:

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The orange lines bracket the destination of flight FOUR, with the circle denoting a rough best guess.

I'm still trying to decide what map coverage Ingenuity will get, but here is a first attempt covering the first 3 flights plus the landed location after Flight 4. I show the approximate coverage by Ingenuity's forward-facing camera based on mapping by Andreas and a tentative additional image, not yet released, looking north on flight 3.

Phil
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I registered the flight map released today and digitized the paths for flights 3 and 4:

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There are also outlines of the mapped DEMs along the paths. I am relieved that my estimate (orange) of the path and destination (circle) turned out accurate enough. In fact, I would have expected that the 3d scan would be centered along the flight path but it is shown a bit off-center in the released map. Perhaps it will be worth to map out the path of Ingenuity's shadow from the released flight 4 sequence.

Friday's flight 5 apparently will track flight 4 (as much as possible) and so should end up in the circled area.

Great work, Andreas. Here is a map for Ingenuity's flight 4 - the next flight will be added to this later. I have deviated a bit from Andreas's map by showing the return path leading to the actual landing point. Ingenuity landed east of its original position after flight 4, and of course the fifth flight will also depart from there.

Phil

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And my version....

How did you pinpoint the return point with centimeter-precision ("131.46 m")?

Thorsten

It's a GIS derived value from the midpoint to the landing point. There are of course uncertainties in Ingenuity's and midway point position.
Should have really rounded up the number.

After some thought I think they moved the azimuth of the south flight zone area slightly to the SE direction in order to fit the descent camera coverage.

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Sol 77 / flight 5 update. Landing location estimated from Mastcam imagery. The official distance reported is 129m, but I get only 122.5m from the take-off and landing postions.

https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/25900/nasas...n-new-airfield/

has a short video which includes this image of 'about where we landed':

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This looks to me very similar to the flight 4 destination image so we may have ended up there.

[Apparently, the color camera on the helicopter is called the Return To Earth Cam, for reasons only known to the team].

This is a Mastcam-Z image pre-landing, roughly stretched to help estimate the landing location. By comparing with post-landing images I have added a likely landing point. It is a bit further out than on Kymani76's map, closer to the end of the previous flight. The 2 big rocks just above the midpoint of my arrow are visible in the descent image basemap.
Phil
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Sol 84 - a drive to the west (a bit north of west really), possibly positioning for a nice smooth drive south to get closer to Ingenuity.
Phil
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sol 84 update from the updated waypoint and traverse geojson, and with a rough estimate of Ingenuity at its new airfield:

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Just a short drive on sol 86, to put a knobbly rock in reach. We are back in the area of my more detailed map.

Phil
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Based on the flight 6 announcement and the high resolution color image from Ingenuity probably from when hovering high above its landing sight I made maps of the imaged area and of how flight 6 could look like:

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It gives me confidence that the flight 5 landing location is not far off.

There is potential to improve the mapping by adding more control points. Hopefully I will find time to do that since it would improve on the HiRISE mapping.

The field of small, triangular dunes, and the east-west striping on the ground are among the features which could not be detected on the HiRISE images.

This is just a visualization of a potential flight path based on the description in the announcement. If I did that correctly, t works out for landing on the rugged crater rim (!).

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The idea that drones could explore places inside craters not accessible by rover may be tested soon.

Sol 91 - a shortish drive to the south, maybe 25 m. The location is based on a partial panorama.

Phil

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Hi Phil,

Is this white rectangle (sol 76 - Airfield "B") the last landing location of Ingenuity? Is the Field C next possible target for little helicopter?

The symbol is the approximate location of the helicopter landing after flight 5 - still hoping for a new picture after the latest drive to nail down the position a bit better. Field C is the (approximate) next landing site.

Here is another version of the map.

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Phil

A larger map with the json traverse to the current site, the helicopter aerial image at the end of flight 5, now more carefully georeferenced, and a tentative flight 6 path, based on the narrative provided in the update news item. The current location of Ingenuity on the map may well be a little off.


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This is my best guess at the moment for flight 6. I'm still not certain I have the end of flight 5 location correct. Flight 6 runs roughly SW for about 150 m, and where it stops it takes the aerial view out over the landscape, the one which has just been released. Then it runs south for about 20 m, and that's where the video starts. From there it runs NE and then turns a bit and moves north before landing. That landing point is right on Andreas's vector. Subject to modification!!! (as always).

Phil

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Thanks for giving flight 6 a try. I get the same spot for the location of the aerial view, and it is likely that the small spidery dunes in this area are the same which are shown in the video. Running south, and then turning sharply back to the NE (as planned) would also pass by the small crater as seen in the video. But I am not sure I can see the required sharp turn by a counterclockwise 135 degree from S to NE in the video. There is a turn but it looks more like 45 degrees. I will need fresh eyes to look again at the map, the panorama, and the video.