Celestia Forums

Hi all,

I'm proud to present the first colored 8K photo map of Mercury.





You can find this map as virtual texture on my site.

What is special with this map? Let's have a look at the source:



As I began my work I was absolute not sure if it's possible to remove this strong grid and labels without ugly artifacts. It was really a hard and boring job. Now I think the result is not bad.

Some words to the colors they are quite fictional. There is no exact informations about it. I thougt the mercury is very hot so near by the sun and iron (oxid) can be also found on it. The saturation is probably to strong but the source map has not the best quality and therefore produce a more soft coloring not better results.

Have fun!
Jens

Jim,....... Thank You,....... Thank you very, very much.

I am truly blown away, your hard work and effort is very much appreciated.

Hey see if you can make a small 1k version out of this, for Chris to include in the Celestia download package.
Not many people are happy with the old default texture.
Im sure he would like it.

Just one question: Do you have any plans to release this as a single texture, at all ?

Woooow, just one word to describe it... Outstanding!

Lots of thanks Jim, you are becoming one of the greatest texture contributors around here

jim wrote:Hi all,

I'm proud to present the first colored 8K photo map of Mercury.
...
Jens

Hi Jens,

while I like your 8k Mercury, I do not see what is so basically different from my colored 8k Mercury texture that I derived 3 1/2 months earlier from the 11k Mariner 10 photos. Just go back 3 1/2 month in this department, and you wiil find plenty of respective images. I did not have to remove any grids. Instead I have LOK masks and other goodies...

I agree that your's can be downloaded while mine is still not available in public. However, the main reason was that I wanted to produce also an acceptable 1k version for the distribution, ...and failed miserably. It just turned out horrible. So I renounced publishing my textures altogether, since I dislike changing things too often (too much of perfectionism?). The hyper-dense crater landscape of Mercury requires at least 2k, otherwise you get "horror";-)

Bye Fridger

Hey Fridger,
Well I can see one very big difference between your 8k Mercury texture and Jen's 8k Mercury texture, availability. We can download Jen's texture. However almost everything you create and show us in the forum can’t be downloaded. We the members of the forum love to see your work but it’s like teasing us. Most of us know we will not be able to get a hold of anything you create because of your bandwidth issues. Most of us texture creators show pictures of projects that come to fruition and we can make them available. I am sure that if you truly wanted to make your textures available you could find a way to get them uploaded. You have to know someone with a high-speed internet account. What would it take to burn your textures to CDR and just upload from a friend’s connection? We have been waiting to see many of your textures for over a year now. Is it any wonder that many of us in the texture creating field take you ideas or your screen shots and use them to create a texture just like yours? The simplest reason we as texture creators due this is not to steal your thunder Fridger. It’s to try and emulate some of your work and make it available to all. Your textures are great but we as a community just can’t get our hands on them. There in a nutshell is the main difference between your Mercury texture and Jen’s.

Don. Edwards

Hi all,

Darkmiss wrote:Hey see if you can make a small 1k version out of this, for Chris to include in the Celestia download package.

If Chris gets the permission of A.Taifun Oner we can do that.

Darkmiss wrote:Do you have any plans to release this as a single texture, at all ?

Now I will upload a 2k JPG map for "classic" Celestia and old hardware.

t00fri wrote:I do not see what is so basically different from my colored 8k Mercury texture that I derived 3 1/2 months earlier from the 11k Mariner 10 photos.

Fridger, please look carefull! I know about this 11k shaded map and made in march this year as weel a colored map. I'd never released anything because I don't like this shaded maps.

I'd no problems to build a acceptable 1k map.


Bye Jens

Don. Edwards wrote:Hey Fridger,
Well I can see one very big difference between your 8k Mercury texture and Jen's 8k Mercury texture, availability. We can download Jen's texture. However almost everything you create and show us in the forum can’t be downloaded. We the members of the forum love to see your work but it’s like teasing us. Most of us know we will not be able to get a hold of anything you create because of your bandwidth issues. Most of us texture creators show pictures of projects that come to fruition and we can make them available. I am sure that if you truly wanted to make your textures available you could find a way to get them uploaded. You have to know someone with a high-speed internet account. What would it take to burn your textures to CDR and just upload from a friend’s connection? We have been waiting to see many of your textures for over a year now. Is it any wonder that many of us in the texture creating field take you ideas or your screen shots and use them to create a texture just like yours? The simplest reason we as texture creators due this is not to steal your thunder Fridger. It’s to try and emulate some of your work and make it available to all. Your textures are great but we as a community just can’t get our hands on them. There in a nutshell is the main difference between your Mercury texture and Jen’s.

Don. Edwards

Well I wrote it myself: availability of my more recent stuff is a problem. For various reasons. My friends know why. Still, even mytotally out-of-date TextureFoundry site todate counts 63400 (!) visits and not much less downloads. How many have you "texture creators" meanwhile? I just always enjoy your "wise lectures";-)

Bye Fridger

Jens...fantastic texture..many thanks for this.

Fridger...you are still getting a lot of visits to the texture foundary because people are interested to see if anything's new!...It might be an idea to say something like 'new textures coming soon'...or similar!

mmm...

Regards...bh.

jim wrote:Hi all,

Fridger, please look carefull! I know about this 11k shaded map and made in march this year as weel a colored map. I'd never released anything because I don't like this shaded maps.

I'd no problems to build a acceptable 1k map.
Bye Jens

I think your 1k map is about as horrible as what I get...1k is simply too small for Mercury.

All I wanted to point out above was that your statement was not quite correct: you said that you are presenting the /first colored 8k Mercure texture/...

Your present one may well be nicer, but it is not the first one. That's all.

Bye Fridger

The thing is the 1k map may be small, it may be crap (detail wise)
But is still better than the very bad default version that has been knocking around for ages now.

And im sure Chris would want somthing a bit more up to date

Here is a reminder of what is in the Celestia download
It doesn't even come close to the real thing.......

jim wrote:Now I will upload a 2k JPG map for "classic" Celestia and old hardware.

Ahh no 8k single texture....

bh wrote:Jens...fantastic texture..many thanks for this.

Fridger...you are still getting a lot of visits to the texture foundary because people are interested to see if anything's new!...It might be an idea to say something like 'new textures coming soon'...or similar!

mmm...

Regards...bh.

Bh,

the logics of that argument does not "kill" me right away;-). Why should your argument not be even more relevant for those sites where new textures are coming on more frequently than in my TextureFoundry?

Bye Fridger

Fridger,
I have no idea how to see how many people have visited the Celestia Hub. I didn't add a counter because frankly it is a non issue for me as to how many people visit. Even if Darkmiss is the only visitor thats fine with me. I simply post my work as its gets finished and let it go at that. The number of visitors to my sites is irrelevant as far as I am concerned. I am more concerned as to the quality of my work and to get the work to the user above all else.

I guess that one day, most people would have more powerful hardware, as compared to today, and 1k textures would be considered to be really low resolution like 256x128 would be now. It will only be a matter of time before releasing a 1k version would not be neccessary. But how long before that happens? I don't know.
Brendan

Hey guys,

What is this for a useless discussion: Who has the most counts, the bes maps, the best site, is the best, . . . ?
I build maps to improve Celestia and nothing else. I want see constructive coments in such a post for excample what can be be improved. If an argument convince me i will made a new map.

Fridger, I think my statement is correct. I said "first colored 8K photo map of Mercury" and think there is a difference to a colored "Mercury Saded Relief Map" (see: http://cps.earth.northwestern.edu/M10/shaded.html) .

Paul, why should I build a single 8k JPG/DDS map? The day will come where everyone use Celestia 1.3.1 or better.

Bye Jens

OT: I have most times terrible problems with an ultra slow conection to shatters.net the last weeks.

jim wrote:Paul, why should I build a single 8k JPG/DDS map? The day will come where everyone use Celestia 1.3.1 or better.

Ahhh! I knew these virtual textures woudl be the death of the single texture.

Hey I guess im just old fashioned.

Jim

OT: I have most times terrible problems with an ultra slow conection to shatters.net the last weeks.

Yeah, it's taken me 4 attempts to download this texture but it was worth it.

Now the big question is, do I release my Mariner 10 model without a proper orbit for it's 1974-75 Mercury flybys!?

regards
TERRIER

jim wrote:Hey guys,

What is this for a useless discussion: Who has the most counts, the bes maps, the best site, is the best, . . . ?

Jens,

I agree with you. Such a discussion is really useless and I am sorry if I have induced it. The only reason for recalling my high visit/download numbers on the TexFoundry was to remind people that I have not always 'teased' them (c.f. Don above) with unavailable textures. The reasons for not being able to update things are unfortunate but hard to change for now.

jim wrote:I build maps to improve Celestia and nothing else.

...and this neat little visitor counter on your site

is correspondingly never looked at by its owner;-)

jim wrote:Fridger, I think my statement is correct. I said "first colored 8K photo map of Mercury" and think there is a difference to a colored "Mercury Saded Relief Map" (see: http://cps.earth.northwestern.edu/M10/shaded.html) .

Do you want to say that the 11k Mariner images were not photographed?;-))

OT: I have most times terrible problems with an ultra slow conection to shatters.net the last weeks.

THIS IS INDEED A PAIN IN THE NECK!

Bye Fridger

Hi Fridger,

t00fri wrote:Do you want to say that the 11k Mariner images were not photographed?

Do you really don't know how this "Shaded Relief Maps" of Mercury, Moon and many satellites of Saturn was made? This maps was build at a time where Photoshop was not born and a monitor shows only an amber or green color. You can believe it or not all this maps are hand painted! Sure the Artist used the photos of the sondes for its work but I would not say that the result is a photo map.

Fridger, my big site update was on 15. August 2003. Before this date there was only some Mars maps and two 3ds models on the page and I used direct links in the forum for some new maps. The counter stands on 15. August on 819.

Bye Jens

jim wrote:Hi Fridger,
...
Fridger, my big site update was on 15. August 2003. Before this date there was only some Mars maps and two 3ds models on the page and I used direct links in the forum for some new maps. The counter stands on 15. August on 819.

Bye Jens

I just showed your counter to illustrate that despite your above statement

jim wrote:I build maps to improve Celestia and nothing else.

you do seem to be interested how many people are visiting your site. Otherwise, it would be hard to understand why you have installed the above counter....Personally, I am not interested how much is on your counter and unfortunately also do not understand what you meant to say with your last sentence above.

Finally, you did not tell us yet, from what Mercury mission your photo is and from what year!?

Now, the 11k mercury map that I was using was released only recently, Oct 19, 2001 by NASA/USGS. It is definitely a composite photographic map and NOT handpainted!
Here is the URL:
http://www.solarviews.com/cap/merc/mercurycyl1.htm.

Why do you think that in 2001 they were not able to compose a mercury map with modern software from the thousands of photos taken by mariner 10 in 1974!??


Bye Fridger

Fridger read only the fist line:

"Shaded relief map produced by the USGS Flagstaff AZ. Scanned from published map USGS I-1149, 1979."
http://cps.earth.northwestern.edu/M10/shaded.html

The map on this site is the same as your link.

Bye Jens