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Viewing in 3D

The Mars rovers have several cameras that come in pairs, just like human eyes, to capture images in stereo. The Midnight Planets app features the ability to view most of these images in stereo 3D, in several different formats. Some of these options for 3D do not even need special glasses, although they may require a little practice to use. So instead of just looking around on Mars, with surprising little effort you might be able to look around on Mars in 3D. If you can do it - and many people can - the effort will be well rewarded.

Vision Modes

The vision modes in Midnight Planets are found in the View Options menu.

Tips

Some tips for viewing in 3D in Midnight Planets:

Start with a wide view toward the horizon. At the time of writing, the app has some issues projecting images in the foreground close to the rover; fixing that will require more math than the author has time for at the moment. There are some similar issues when the rover is parked at an incline. Keep your eyes level with the screen… unless the left-right projection is obviously askew, in which case it might help to tilt your head a bit one way or the other.

For the Freeviewing options, it may help to remove your glasses if you wear them. It may take some work to find the distance between your eyes and the screen that allows your eyes to focus on the separate left and right views. Once you’ve learned the trick of freeviewing, it gets much easier.

Switching ground-relative viewing to OFF in the View Options may help somewhat with viewing some challenging targets in stereo. Normally you’ll want to view with the ground relative view option turned ON.

Details

The different stereo cameras on the rovers are separated by different distances, creating a different stereo ‘depth’. Usually the separation is greater than that of human eyes, so the stereo effect may be exaggerated.

Curiosity’s Mastcam was not exactly intended to provide stereo, since the left and right cameras have different focal lengths and fields of view (the right camera is sort of the ‘zoom lens’). Never the less, Mastcam images work fairly well in stereo, when all the images are combined into a panoramic view. It may help to select a particular image that you are looking at. Where both Mastcam eyes are not available, often Mastcam can visually combine with Navcam images in the app to produce a stereo effect.

Next: Image Correction and Color