Has anyone seen this yet?

[Rassilon]

Ill probably wait till im at work before I download this...but it looks pretty decent...

http://www.geofusion.com/MarsDemo.html

[alphap1us]

Does it do anythign that Celsetia doesn't? Maybe it has better resolution or you can fly through canyons and smash into mountains. Those are the only things I can think of.

[selden]

It claims to include an mp3 player

It does include 3D topography. Location labels are multi-color.

And the full featured version isn't free.

[Rassilon]

Chris might be able to impliment something like this in Celestia...Thing is since its not open source I dont think he will be able to retrieve the source code...

[Bob Hegwood]

Mr. Rassilon,

This is the same package that Mario had available from his Space Graphics website when he first began his project. Unfortunately, it doesn't display all of the planetary details on my non-graphically enhanced PC, but it does seem to offer an entertaining way to get around on Mars.

Take care, Bob

[DJ_Night]

The "terrain scale" would really be a useful feature impliment to Celestia.

I enjoyed GeoPlayer™ Mars Demo, simple & fast, I can only imagine what the fullversion would cost $?,

Impressive Earth Gallery:: http://www.geofusion.com/gallery.html


can someone borrow me 8k USD$ =), The Source code isnt free for sure,
that price covers the SDK toolkit plus super HighRes Textures and Satelite images of almost all of the world. etc.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The GeoMatrix™ Toolkit SDK - for develepment

Pricing & Licensing

Software Development

The GeoMatrix Toolkit is licensed for $8,000 (US) per development seat for a permanent license or $2,500 (US) for a one year license. A permanent license is

required for distribution of developed applications.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[mike_mike1850@yahoo.com]

I saw geoplayer tooo I wants it Chris do you magic and make something similar in celestia or maybe there is some way to let them use celestia as a sample of their stuff. On a planet level it was wonderful. But I was wishing the controls were the same as celestias and was open to play with as easy as celestia is. Chris maybe you should talk to them or something. 2 wonderful programs sure be nice to have them together
oh well dream dream lol

[rassilon too lazy]

I tried it and I wasnt at all impressed...Infinate universe can do better with higher resolution images...Notice as you approach mars the pixelation of the texture....They didnt even use procedural texturing...and for the price its laughable to say the least they want that much for it....

A nice class project...

[Orion3D]

I was very impressed with the small, highly interactive 32MB demo !!!

This is great software for real globally referenced imagery and elevation data - it is not for a game that uses precedural texturing.

I called GeoFusion and found out that there is 3GB of Mars data that their GeoMatrix Toolkit can render at the same frame rate as the small demo because of their proprietary level of detail algorithms and texture map control.

There is also no limit (just disk drive and server access) to how much data can be displayed on multiple globes and different windows 2D or 3D.
This is a commercial product and the price seems cheap compared to existing products that I have used like MetaVR, AGI, or Boeing's Autometric Omni. I am going to request an evaluation and buy it.

[geofusion]

I just installed Celestia and it seems very cool. I'll need to RTFM to figure out how to navigate around. I'd like to explain what GeoPlayer Mars is. GeoPlayer is a viewer built with the GeoMatrix Toolkit. The system allows for realtime navigation of massive, really unlimited, amounts of imagery and terrain. This is typically real world data, it is not procedurally generated data. We can attach any number of high resolution inserts and users can explore, blend, turn on and off datasets at will. Applications built using toolkit can geopreference and draw their own content, 3D models, etc. into the scene.

The data for the free download is low resolution. The full resolution imagery, 128 pixel/degree, is about 150MB, more for the terrain. This is a different animal than celestia. Don't forget to check out the 'h' help menu and learn how to tilt when you get down near the planet (left + middle mouse button).

The toolkit is for building heavy duty applications such as ESRI's ArcGlobe. It is not open source although much of the infrastructure, projection, formats, etc., will be open soon. We hope to have a CD out soon with lots of Mars data.

enjoy

Chuck

[mike_mike1850@yahoo.com]

This message is not flagged. [ Flag Message - Mark as Unread ]

Date: Sun, 11 Apr 2004 10:05:54 -0700
From: "Chuck Stein - GeoFusion" <stein@geofusion.com> Add to Address Book
Subject: RE: ESA verous Italys RED mars
To: "'George Worthington'" <mike_mike1850@yahoo.com>
CC: "'Howard Larson'" <larson@geofusion.com>




George,
Thanks for the email. I've copied Howard Larson who did most of the work putting this application together. He has used Celestia for a long time. We have been mostly Earth people and this might explain why I have not paid much attention to the Celestia community. Our technology is very powerful and our focus has been on licensing it to other companies to build apps with. This has proven to be a slow go and it is hard not to pass up the opportunity to get it on peoples desktops with all the Mars data. We also have been making inroads in the scientific community.

Putting the Mars Express overlays over any of the Mars global datasets will look a bit funky but that is all we have. I think it is ok as it shows the reality of the situation, poorer data to better data. When a more realistic Mars comes out, we will be there. We are just trying to show what is available. The Malin globe does not play any better and is lower resolution. And, yes, the manual needs a lot of work, a rewrite, thanks for the input.

As we are not open source and don't plan to be for the near future, I'm not sure how we could meld with Celestia. We will open up our projection, tile request protocol, and data format. We typically use massive amounts of data and this can be a burden. We will soon be showing web streaming of data for those with the bandwidth. Our purpose with the Mars demo is to find folks interested in using our technology to build interesting applications, and to get the public aware and interested in the technology. I am thinking about $40 for the CD. We are reworking the inserts now. I wish ESA and JPL and MSSS would put out good georeference information, but they don't and I have to place each image by hand (mouse) which takes a while.

I just downloaded Adrian's software and will check it out soon. Our ability to bring in multiple resolutions of terrain and imagery and multiple datasets of each is one of the strong points of the technology. It is a very hard problem to solve and solve right as I believe we have.

Are you aware of a global image dataset that ESA has put together?

Keep in touch,





-----Original Message-----
From: George Worthington [mailto:mike_mike1850@yahoo.com]
Sent: Sunday, April 11, 2004 6:37 AM
To: stein@geofusion.com
Subject: ESA verous Italys RED mars


Chuck,
I believe that that most of the color variation that you see in Esa pictures is the different colors of mars. I think I read that their pictures will be at a resolution of 12 meters a pixel . A map like that loaded in your program would be unbelievable. I don't know when they will have mars mapped and release such info, but sure cant wait . I remember watching the space crafts heading for mars and thinking I sure hope they get Goofy beagle released to protect that that wonderful camera. If they are able get all of mars mapped before they have some mess-up a virtual Mars will become a much more realistic place.

I was surprised to see you in Celestia forum under, have you seen it? and more surprised to see that your new to Celestia. I figured every planet map nut uses or has at least tried Celestia. Once you find your way around I think you ll see why it has been so successful in bring planets and stars to every users desk top. My interest in all this started with a red Shift 2 program that had a mars labeled mars map in it. After seeing that poor quality map I wanted to see mars in more detail and labeled so i could learn understand mars as a place. Your little demo program has pretty much fulfilled that quest thanks!!! Your work feels to me a lot like Adrian larks programs in polygon worlds ? http://www.polygon worlds.com/ a cross between his mars viewer and his mars explorer programs if you have never been to his site I would be amazed. I even Wrote Adrian once and asked him if he was going to write a program that paged in data from a disk so that you could travel around Mars in his explorer program. You ever talk to him?

I see that you only have 30 feature possible would be nice to be able to fly to every labeled area on auto. Also in your manual you use different units when talking about map resolutions i understand the 128 pixels per degree but get lost on the rest if I'm lost with that I'm sure newbies wouldn't have a clue. but then I'm the guy that never realized the center wheel on a mouse is also a button.

Well as I said in the forum I sure wish Celestia and your program could be merged.Celestia seems to have a very simple and powerful control design and your program has the ability to fly in close and solves the memory limits that Celestia has. It seems to me that that your program integrated into Celestia Would beat the socks off of starry night and many of the big name programs I have found that must of the big name programs are to much of a pain to learn where as Chris has seemed to have found the perfect balance of power and simplicity. Celestia doesn't have many more commands than your program yet one can fly anywhere in the universe with ease as well as go to NASA or even Italy and find new maps. Of course my Geo fusion Celestia program would allow me to add my own maps and automatically divide them up so that one is free to see mars in malin colors if they happen to think they're more realistic. That ability to play with maps in Celestia and not have to be a programmer is what makes it so wonderful. I have never written or talked to Chris but I believe you should. Any way food for thought. And thanks for the nice flight to mars When you think you will have the full version of mars ready and at what cost ?

Mike

[Rassilon]

can someone borrow me 8k USD$ =), The Source code isnt free for sure,
that price covers the SDK toolkit plus super HighRes Textures and Satelite images of almost all of the world. etc.

Well being only $40 dollars is quite different and more feasable than 8k....

As for the overall view of Mars I couldnt get the engine to display anything closer than several miles above the surface...Unless there is some magic key I dont know about...how did anyone 'fly through canyons and smash into mountains'...