Mars in colours at microscopic scale [Images]

[ericdeparis]

Frustrated by the black & white images from the NASA missions, I have managed to imagine (and to validate) a method to recover the color information from the pancam images and to merge the hues of these images to the rovers' microscopic images.<br /><br />And the results are absolutely outstanding, wonderful and interesting ....<br /><br />Here is a modest webpage that present some of the results. <b>http://ethnotronics.com/Mars</b><br /><br />Commments and suggestions are super welcome.<br />ERic de Paris<br /><br />

 

[phelan]

Wow, talk about giving the pictures some life. That is really cool.

 

[silylene old]

nice pictures! <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature" align="center"><em><font color="#0000ff">- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -</font></em> </div><div class="Discussion_UserSignature" align="center"><font color="#0000ff"><em>I really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function.</em></font> </div> </div>

 

[centsworth_II]

From ERicdeParis' website:<br /><br />The demonsration HERE shows how colors from a wide (pancam) image can be laid over a micro image is very interesting. A real "why didn't I think of that" moment.<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[thechemist]

NIX and djellison have also done similar work at the unmannedspaceflight.com forum (formerly the MER forum). I have posted a link in there also so ERic and those guys can compare notes.<br /> Microscopic Color Overlay, Using pancam color for the MI's .<br /><br />ERic, your images are very nice, but it should kept in mind that MI colors are as true as those of the pancam image composites. And plain RGB composites are only approximate. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <em>I feel better than James Brown.</em> </div>

 

[odysseus145]

Still, those are great pictures. Good job <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[yurkin]

Very nice job.<br /><br />I guess the geologists at Nasa never thought to do this because the visible light spectrum images really aren’t the best for determining composition. So there was never a need to think of this. <br />Still somebody making the pictures should have thought of it.<br />

 

[JonClarke]

You mean the geologists on the rover team, I assume, all of whom either work at universities or at the USGS. None work at or for NASA. I don't know who can take the crdit for it but there is certainly a colour MI image on the recent Opportunity special issue of Science, where a similar technique was used. <br /><br />Jon <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Whether we become a multi-planet species with unlimited horizons, or are forever confined to Earth will be decided in the twenty-first century amid the vast plains, rugged canyons and lofty mountains of Mars</em>  Arthur Clarke</p> </div>

 

[ericdeparis]

First I would like to thanks all the posters for the nice comments about the colour microscopic images. I have noted that some of you are reporting that I may not be the very first one to produce such images, nonetheless I should mention that I have searched for such images and I have not seen anything like my composite images anywhere before. <br /><br />About the real “why didn’t I thought of that before” moment, I should confess that I have the same feeling myself, I guess your need for colours pictures was not great enough to stimulate your imagination! I’m following the MER mission from day one, looking each day to each image from the ROV, and my frustration not to have microscopic colour images was really really huge. I had the strong feeling that the colours would allow our brains to get a better understanding of what we see on Mars. (in fact it raises some more questions but in the main time it helps to get a better picture of what we are looking at !) <br /><br />I can confirm that, sadly, the MER missions team has not thought about this technique. The sad thing is that many large areas have already been imaged with the microscopic camera of both rovers, but most of the time, we miss the necessary Pancam images to recover the colour information. (very frustrating) <br /><br />I truly hope that now (knowing about these images) they will systematically take all the photographic material that is needed to be able to built these fantastic microscopic colour images. <br /><br />Our brains doesn’t appear to be disturbed by relatively poor colour information, I’ve made many tests with my digital camera before getting and validate the best approach to create these composite images and I was astonished by the way our brains are handling colors vs shape and contrast information. <br /><br />I’ll post more images to my modest page soon at <b>http://Ethnotronics.com/Mars</b>, stay tune ! <br /><br />ERic<br /> <br /><br />04

 

[JonClarke]

Eric<br /><br />Your pictures are really really good. However, the MER team have produced and published colour MI pictures. These they produced by overlaying pancam colour images on the MI. See Figures 3 and 4 of L. A. Soderblom et al. "Soils of Eagle Crater and Meridiani Planum at the Opportunity Rover Landing Site", Science vol 306 3 December 2004.<br /><br />It simply is not true to say that the MER team has not thought of this technique.<br /><br />Jon <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Whether we become a multi-planet species with unlimited horizons, or are forever confined to Earth will be decided in the twenty-first century amid the vast plains, rugged canyons and lofty mountains of Mars</em>  Arthur Clarke</p> </div>

 

[ericdeparis]

Jon,<br /><br />Thank you for pointing at something that looks like microscopic colorization. I should mention that I don’t know what they did exactly but this is not the method I use (I have applied my method to the examples, Figures 3 and 4). I’m afraid they asked some computer graphist to do this and the result is far from what could be obtain with my validated method. I’m afraid this scientific work is simply and sadly not correct. <br /><br />So yes they did thought about doing colorization but they strangly did not managed to find the correct way of doing it ! <br /><br />Concerning the figures in the paper, the scale ratio between one single microscopic image and a pancam image is too great to give valid results only groups of stitched microscopic images can be accurately colorised using pancam images to give the spectacular images I have posted to my humble page here: http://ethnotronics.com/Mars<br /><br />MHO is that if the MER team or anyone had made colorisation as I did, they would have share these wonderful images with the world? They are really spectacular photos and people will love them around Earth.<br /><br />ERic

 

[thechemist]

Dear ERic,<br /><br />Your images are impressive, however allow me to disagree with your assertion that <i>"The colors are true colors, they are almost as good as if the photos were taken by a tourist on Mars. "</i><br />Your colors are great, but without taking into account exposure times and by using just the contrast-streched JPGs posted at the JPL site, I do not think your claim on true color is correct.<br /><br />Also, it is not fair to refer to the people processing the images for JPL as some "computer graphists", they are fully qualified scientists/image analysts.<br /><br />Finally, keep in mind that the validation of your method on Earth does not automatically mean it will work for Martian images, since you have not taken into account the characteristics of ambient martian light conditions for each PanCam image acquired. JPL people have such data available.<br /><br />Do not misunderstand me, I think your images are really great, I just disagree with some of your assertions.<br /><br />TheChemist <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <em>I feel better than James Brown.</em> </div>

 

[ericdeparis]

One thing I’m doing is to use the color calibration picture took by the pancam to ensure that the colours I’m using are correct. (this eliminate the exposure time issues and gives a reference point to start with). We get colours as if marsians rocks were brought back to earth and imaged down here.Now are this calibration images correct? Should we try to compare images of this calibration target taken on Earth to the one taken on Mars ? <br /><br />I would prefer not to debate about what are true colour images because until someone (a human, a group of humans) goes up there and report back to us if the true colours images were actual true colours. We will not know how realistic the picture are until that moment. <br /><br />The images are not true calibrated colour images that could be used to determine the composition of what’s on the images... Now when tourists are taking pictures with their ship digital cameras, is the white balance correctly set ? what about the chromatic aberations of the lenses ?…. Are the pictures true colours ones ? <br />In fact, I think "True colours" is to be opposed to "enhanced or manipulated colours". This is why I wrote that the images are true colours and almost as good as if the photos were taken by a tourist on Mars. <br /><br />ERic <br />http://Ethnotronics.com/Mars<br /><br /><br />If you want to know how the exposure time are handled with the pancam you can read these papers, there are quite precise: <br />http://europa.la.asu.edu/pgg/greeley/courses/pdf/pdf_gw/bell_2003.pdf <br />http://pds-imaging.jpl.nasa.gov/Atlas/MER/documents/pancam_ug.pdf