Mars texture update preview

[martins]

I'm currently working on an upgrade to the Mars textures.

This will include increased resolution, by factoring the 100m Mars Odyssey THEMIS (Thermal Emission Imaging System) daytime IR global mosaic into the current MOC (Mars Orbiter Camera) mosaic. As a result, the Mars textures will cover up to resolution level 11 (current: 10). So now is the time to put aside a few more GB on your HDD for Orbiter textures ...

I've also modified the colour balance of my synthetic colorization to more closely match the Viking colour composites (see e.g. http://astrogeology.usgs.gov/search.../Mars_Viking_MDIM21_ClrMosaic_global_232m/cub). The result is a more coppery, less orange colour balance.

Here are a few before/after shots:

The new textures should appear on the Orbiter Beta Textures website sometime later this week or next week, when I find time to package and upload them.

 

[SolarLiner]

The new color does look better, despite remembering photographs of Mars looking more like the first color though. Or maybe I'm blending everything with images from The Martian? :lol:

I planned on downloading all the high res textures over this weekend, but it seems like I'll wait for the new Mars textures then... Stunning work as always! :thumbup:

 

[martins]

I have now uploaded the new Mars textures to the Beta Textures repository. Please let me know of any problems with the package files or the textures themselves, and what you think about the new set.

It's actually not that much bigger, since the resolution of the elevation data has not changed.

 

[Ripley]

Do we just overwrite the existing ones?

Ok, I've just read the News page:

Please note that the old and new Mars textures should not be mixed. If you already have installed the previous Mars texture set, you should rename or remove your Textures/Mars folder before installing the new set.

 

[martins]

Aeolis Palus old and new: now you can nearly spot Curiosity! :thumbup:

 

[Ripley]

Server's overload?
I can't d'load HiRes file 001 since yesterday.
File 002 downloaded without problems.

I'll try later during the day.

---------- Post added at 16:11 ---------- Previous post was at 11:45 ----------

Am I the only one having problems downloading this big 001 file?
Connection is reset/refused every time.
Free Download Manager is giving me an "unknown network error".

No problems with the smaller 002 file though.

 

[orb]

Am I the only one having problems downloading this big 001 file?

For now ~300 MB downloaded for me, but no problems with downloading it so far here (however I haven't used any "download manager").

 

[SolarLiner]

Downloaded Mars using FDM too, no problem on my end.

 

[Ripley]

It's strange because as soon as I click on that file I get this message, almost immediately:

FireFox

Chrome

IE

OTOH, when I click on the smaller file, after 1 or 2 seconds, the standard download window opens.
Ok, I'll keep on trying...

---------- Post added 29-11-15 at 11:10 ---------- Previous post was 28-11-15 at 19:19 ----------

Still no-go for me.

---------- Post added at 22:56 ---------- Previous post was at 11:10 ----------

Ok, I finally succeeded in downloading that big file through a Linux Mint partition, MD5 is ok.
Obviously my Windows is borked.

Sorry for polluting this thread with my issues, if mods want to clean it, that's fine for me.

 

[martins]

Glad to hear it worked. I must admit that I probably never tried to download any of these large packs under Windows, so if there is a general problem with the texture packs and Windows, it would have escaped me.

Did anybody else have trouble getting any of the texture packs to download under Windows?

 

[orb]

All the files shouldn't cause any problems while downloading onto an NTFS file system. The 4GB files would be a problem for FAT file systems (they are 1 byte too long to fit in the FAT directory entry).

 

[Fert]

Thank you for new texture !

But this color right? As it is written on the site:
"The images used to make MDIM 2.1 were obtained primarily through the red, clear, and minus-blue filters of the Viking Orbiter imaging system, and thus provide a monochromatic view of Mars weighted toward the red end of the visible spectrum."
Therefore, no green channel data. Maybe use a color palette of images from Rosetta, the three basic colors channels there are present.
Image made from the data of the Rosetta by Gordan Ugarkovic: https://www.flickr.com/photos/ugordan/6733745309/

 

[martins]

Thank you for new texture !

But this color right? As it is written on the site:
"The images used to make MDIM 2.1 were obtained primarily through the red, clear, and minus-blue filters of the Viking Orbiter imaging system, and thus provide a monochromatic view of Mars weighted toward the red end of the visible spectrum."
Therefore, no green channel data. Maybe use a color palette of images from Rosetta, the three basic colors channels there are present.
Image made from the data of the Rosetta by Gordan Ugarkovic: https://www.flickr.com/photos/ugordan/6733745309/

The description on the USGS page is a bit ambiguous on that point. I was under the impression that the information about the "red, clear and minus-blue" filters referred to the monochromatic part of the MDIM image, and that the actual (lower-res) colour information was superimposed onto the monochromatic MDIM image from other Viking sources. Note that the USGS site has another, gray-scale MDIM 2.1 image that contains exactly the same information about the colour filters (http://astrogeology.usgs.gov/search/details?id=/Mars/Viking/MDIM21/Mars_Viking_MDIM21_Mosaic_global_232m.cub).

The page with the colour image also makes mention of an "artistically colorized version of the latest controlled Mars Digital Image Model", which I took to mean a best guess at the true colour.

Note that the Rosetta images themselves seem to be open to interpretation regarding the colour balance. Here is an image from an ESA page (http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2014/02/24/on-this-day-in-2007-rosetta-prepared-for-an-encounter-with-mars/) which seems to show the same image as your post, but with a much more red colour balance. On the page, this too is described as "It is a true-colour image generated using the OSIRIS orange (red), green and blue colour filters."

 

[Urwumpe]

The more reddish version is likely the correct one, this is how Hubble observes Mars:

 

[GLS]

The color of Mars, a problem since 1976 :lol:.

 

[Urwumpe]

The color of Mars, a problem since 1976 :lol:.
Carl Sagan Announces Correct Color of Sky in Viking Mars Image - YouTube

It also seems to a be a problem between space based telescopes and ground based telescopes. :hmm:

 

[Enjo]

But this color right?

Hey, this is Mars, not Dune!

 

[PhantomCruiser]

Arrakis, home of the spice mélange.

But seriously, WOW at the textures!

 

[Ripley]

...But seriously, WOW at the textures!

Exactly!

 

[martins]

To make it clear: I'd be very happy to re-run the texture generator with a different colour balance and upload a modified set. It's somewhat tedious (about a day's worth of Matlab script processing), but no big problem.

But I will do it only if there is a consensus about what the new colour should be, and how far off the current set is from that. I don't get the feeling that a consensus exists at the moment, and the current textures seem to sit comfortably somewhere within the (rather wide) range of "plausible" solutions.