Brand new Sojourner Rover model

JackHiggins · Post #1by **JackHiggins** » 12.04.2003, 19:35

Hi all

I've made a model of the Sojourner Rover, from the Mars Pathfinder mission in 1997. You can get it from my website at http://homepage.eircom.net/~jackhiggins/celestia/ (Bottom of the spacecraft list)

Here are some screenshots:

The zip also contains an ssc file, to place the rover in the correct landing location on mars. A model of the Pathfinder lander itself will be coming soon!!

Enjoy!

ANDREA · Post #2by **ANDREA** » 13.04.2003, 00:10

JackHiggins wrote:Hi all
I've made a model of the Sojourner Rover, from the Mars Pathfinder mission in 1997. You can get it from my website at http://homepage.eircom.net/~jackhiggins/celestia/ (Bottom of the spacecraft list)
The zip also contains an ssc file, to place the rover in the correct landing location on mars. A model of the Pathfinder lander itself will be coming soon!!
Enjoy!

Very very nice, Jack.
Now I have a request for the Celestia creators: is it possible to put this and/or the Moon Lander on a specially created High-Res little portion of Mars and Moon surfaces, to show them in a more pleasant way?
This connects to the many requests that have been done about the possibility to choose among the Hi-Med-Lo Res textures.
Thank you again, it's what was missing in my "The Space Conquest" .cel file.
By

Andrea

Rassilon · Post #3by **Rassilon** » 13.04.2003, 01:16

ANDREA wrote:Very very nice, Jack.
Now I have a request for the Celestia creators: is it possible to put this and/or the Moon Lander on a specially created High-Res little portion of Mars and Moon surfaces, to show them in a more pleasant way?

Yes...I have been contimplating this but havent got around to doing it yet...This would allow cities to be rendered on the earth and other fantasy type stuff...

The city idea might be quite an undertaking...Someone want to model seattle for Chris?

JackHiggins · Post #4by **JackHiggins** » 13.04.2003, 14:48

Making a mini-mars landscape is something that I could do- except i'm better at making spacecraft rather than landscape type things... The August 1998 issue of the national geographic has a 3d supplement about the pathfinder mission, so anyone interested in making the landscape could use this for ideas...?!

I have a major problem however...

I've made a model of the Pathfinder lander itself, but when I try to look at it in celestia it crashes every time... I know its something wrong with the model, but I cant see what. (It works fine in anim8or)

Could someone please put this model into their copy of celestia, and tell me what happens, or even modify the model so it doesnt crash anymore? If anyone could help i'd be very grateful because I spent a lot of time making this model!!! You can get it from http://homepage.eircom.net/~jackhiggins ... rmodel.zip (It's not on the main site because it doesnt work.. yet!)

Thanks in advance!!

ElPelado · Post #5by **ElPelado** » 13.04.2003, 15:03

hi, about earth's cities textures. i found a program that has many hi-res textures of cities and places. this is the name, but i dont know where i found it, so look for it:
EarthViewer 3D NVIDIA

i hope it 'll help

ElPelado · Post #6by **ElPelado** » 13.04.2003, 15:44

the sojourner model is very good.
but there is something with its possition in mars: its not really on mars surface, it a little upper from it, is "flaying", what should i change in the ssc file to make it sit on the surface?

helvick · Post #7by **helvick** » 13.04.2003, 16:23

JackHiggins wrote:Could someone please put this model into their copy of celestia, and tell me what happens, or even modify the model so it doesnt crash anymore? If anyone could help i'd be very grateful because I spent a lot of time making this model!!! You can get it from http://homepage.eircom.net/~jackhiggins ... rmodel.zip (It's not on the main site because it doesnt work.. yet!)

Thanks in advance!!

Jack,

I tried it, positioning it about 200m "east" of the sojourner model and I get a crash (Celestia 1.3 pre6) as soon as it starts to try to render the model. Celestia just locks up and everything goes white. Same thing happens when I just float it out in space. I can't help you with debugging the 3ds file unfortunately.

If someone does work out a way to get some sort of highly detailed localised surface textures for locations like the Sojourner landing site an xyz file for the combined Pathfinder\Sojourner duo would be quite spectacular.

JoeM

Post #8by **selden** » 13.04.2003, 18:30

In principle, at least, one can provide either a flat or 3D high resolution area for viewing

To generate a flat picture of the area, one could use a flat 3DS model conaining a high-resolution picture of the area and place it using the same technique used for placing the spacecraft, but at a slightly lower altitude.

At the next level of complexity, a DEM could be translated into a bumpmap included in the flat model to cast shadows.

Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) are available for downloading from the USGS.

To generate a real 3D surface, one might be able to translate a DEM of the area into a 3DS model.

One possibile way to create a 3DS model might be to use Wilbur and Anim8or.

Wilbur is a free utility that can import DEM format, among others. It can export DXF quads or greyscale bumpmaps, but not 3ds. Anim8or claims to be able to import DXF format, but I don't know if it can handle quads. It can export 3DS, of course.

I hope this helps a ltitle.

Guest · Post #9by **Guest** » 13.04.2003, 20:03

JackHiggins wrote:Making a mini-mars landscape is something that I could do-

Then do it, please please please !
:wink:

Guest · Post #10by **Guest** » 13.04.2003, 20:23

JackHiggins wrote: I get a crash (Celestia 1.3 pre6) as soon as it starts to try to render the model. Celestia just locks up and everything goes white.

Same here. Sojourner model works fine, but the pathfinder model crashes Celestia :cry:

(btw, i renamed "pathfinder.3ds" -> "sojourner.3ds" because you dont provide the extra .ssc file for pathfinder)

I must say: the sojourner model is beautiful, congratulation! (i wish i could tell if the pathfinder is good as well

)

JackHiggins · Post #11by **JackHiggins** » 13.04.2003, 23:27

Well, if anyone else can try & see what the problem is, i'd be very grateful, but for everyone out there that cant wait, here's an image of the model from inside anim8or

Only you can save this model... (ominous music)

JackHiggins · Post #12by **JackHiggins** » 13.04.2003, 23:48

Oh one other thing too- for anyone who's interested, if the model can be made to work, this is some more positioning info.

The sojourner rover's last location before the lander signal went dead was about 15-20m from the edge of the ramp, in the direction of the red arrow, and north is in the direction of the green arrow.

bh · Post #13by bh » 13.04.2003, 23:53

Great work Jack, I haven't tried the Pathfinder model yet... Beagle2?

Regards...bh.

JackHiggins · Post #14by **JackHiggins** » 13.04.2003, 23:58

bh wrote:Great work Jack, I haven't tried the Pathfinder model yet... Beagle2?

Had a look at their site the other day, looks like it could be easy enough to do- i'll have a go at it when I have some more time!

ElPelado · Post #15by **ElPelado** » 14.04.2003, 00:27

there is a problem with the sojourner model(it looks grate): its not on mars' surface, its floating. it is possible to make it stay on the ground??

i have tryed the pathfinder and it crashes too. i dont know what to say. i will try a couple of things and tell you ok?

ron · Post #16by **ron** » 14.04.2003, 06:11

If you could create say a 300m2 3D actual surface model to place under the rover and lander then you may also be able to create an xyz file for the rover so that it moves along it's actual exploration path. Just whether this information is available anywhere or not I don't know. Also do the xyz files contain all the model orientation parameters so that it can negotiate a 3D surface with some realism. ?????

Post #17by **chris** » 14.04.2003, 06:49

The Pathfinder model crashes on my system too . . . I'm investigating and working on a fix. The model looks great--Jack, how do you create these so quickly?

Anyhow, I'm dying to see it on Mars, so this bug will get fixed tonight

--Chris

Post #18by **chris** » 14.04.2003, 07:18

Very strange . . . it's dying when sorting the submeshes by material. Adding a print statement to the comparison function makes the problem go away . . . It has the appearance of a compiler bug, or a problem in Microsoft's STL implementation.

--Chris

Post #19by **chris** » 14.04.2003, 07:29

Here's a Celestia EXE for Windows with the bizarre workaround for that apparent bug. Now I recall that I've seen other strange behavior from Microsoft's STL sort function . . . I'm going to try a more recent compiler/library and see if that fixes the problem. In the mean time:

http://www.celestiaproject.net/~claurel/celest ... derfix.zip

It's just the EXE, so you'll need copy over the EXE in the most recent prerelease package.

--Chris

JackHiggins · Post #20by **JackHiggins** » 14.04.2003, 18:14

Hey everyone- It's fixed!!!

No need for strange workarounds (thanks for the effort though chris! :wink:

), I copied & pasted each part of the model piece by piece, and the cause seems to have been the tiny struts in the legs of the camera tower. I grouped all of the struts together and converted to mesh, and now it works perfectly.

Here are some screenshots:

You can get it from my site, http://homepage.eircom.net/~jackhiggins/celestia/ , as usual it's at the bottom of the spacecraft list.

I also made an ssc that positions Sojourner near Pathfinder, but it's hovering 6 feet up in the air... Maybe someone could improve this slightly!?!

Enjoy!! Next on my list is a model of NEAR, but I havn't got any good pictures of it to work from- anyone know where to get some good ones?

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Brand new Sojourner Rover model

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