Today I was alerted to a really amazing website for 3-D Spirit and Opportunity images . Most of the 3-D images that I've seen so far weren't registered very well and just plain didn't look good. Well, these ones are spectacular -- just beautiful. You're gonna love 'em.
The website is titled Thom Bone's Mars Site - Gorgeous 3D Pics from the Spirit and Opportunity Rovers! and they are indeed gorgeous.
Getting 3-D images right isn't easy. Most of the MER 3-D images I've seen so far were not just less than perfect, they were plain bad. That's mostly attributable to the fact that they're not hand-done. It is certainly a laborious process to get it right and so there's no doubt but that Thom has put some serious time and effort into very carefully aligning and tweaking these more than 30 images so they look this stunning -- and he promises more!
I'm surprised nearly every day at the community that has sprung up around the MER mission and I credit NASA/JPL/Cornel for their openness and the volume of information they've made public. I work in open source software development, on a project with literally tens of thousands of contributors, so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised by what's happening around the MER mission. If you release the source/data, people will want to play with it. If enough people start poking around, chances are good that some great products will result. This 3-D image resource is a perfect example of that. Great work, Thom! I'll be checking back regularly.
It really bears repeating; Work of this quality is difficult and time-consuming, but when it's done right it's just stunning. So get out your red & cyan glasses, head over to Thom Bone's Mars Site, enjoy it, and be sure to spread the word.
update: And there's more! 12 new images since I posted.
