Mars Rover Technology Used to Make Better Maps

Cal writes "An article on the O'Reilly Radar site discusses a new street mapping technology by a company in Berkeley called earthmine. They are using technology developed by the Jet Propulsion Lab for the Mars Exploration Rover missions for reconstructing three-dimensional data of the street-scape. 'The licensed software and algorithms are used to create a 3D representation of the local terrain, allowing autonomous routing of the MERs through the Martian environment. earthmine has combined this JPL technology with its unique, capture hardware and web delivery technology to deliver 3D data with unprecedented density and accuracy.'"

Navigation works really well.

[LiquidCoooled]

My car has so far lasted 6 times longer than its original mission lifespan and I am halfway to the local shop.
I should reach it by June (providing my solar panels don't get dusty).

Solar panels

[game kid]

Dear Mr./Mrs./Ms./Miss LiquidCoooled,

Thank you for your feedback. We apologize for our mistake and have just broomed several pounds of dust and confetti (from our last retirement party--those shards on the right panel? Just our $1,500 chalices) on your solar panels. We will seize and replace your newly dusty solar panels with the correct premium-only gasoline engine (or an enormously expensive panel replacement) for your vehicle, on your next inspection and/or once we buy out the company that produces t

Poor Rover

[kaoshin]

If it used to make better maps before then I'm sure it could do it again. Pitiful thing is probably just feeling very isolated and abandoned.

Exclusive license for federally-funded research?

[bn0p]

From the press release [earthmine.com] referenced in the article "The agreement with JPL and Caltech includes an exclusive and perpetual license for photogrammetric technology that allows for the creation of very dense and accurate 3D data from stereo panoramic imagery. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed, but Caltech has taken an equity position in earthmine." [emphasis added]

OK, CalTech owns part of earthmine and JPL is at CalTech. That's fine, but didn't tax dollars pay for the technology developed at JPL? IANAL, but it *used* to be that federally-funded research needed to be made available to everyone - not licensed in perpetuity to a private company. When did this change?


Never let reality temper imagination

Re:Exclusive license for federally-funded research

[Anonymous Coward]

This is one of the best ways of appropriating your tax dollars next to guns and drugs.

Cue the rightwingers who always leap in to claim that company X needs to have a monopoly over product Y to recoup their costs for R&D which were actually paid by someone else, most likely the public.

Have a look at all the wonderful medication you financed that is being sold back to you at twice the price compared to any other civilized country because you're dumb enough to eat up every word bigCo tells you. The market

Re:Exclusive license for federally-funded research

[Jherek Carnelian]

IANAL, but it *used* to be that federally-funded research needed to be made available to everyone - not licensed in perpetuity to a private company. When did this change?

It didn't change, at least not in my lifetime. I still remember there being a bit of brouhaha over the GNU licensing of linux ethernet drivers (by Donald Becker I think) and parts of beowulf clustering written under contract to NASA over a decade ago. Lots of corporate entitlement types were PO'ed about the GNU licensing of that stuff because it went against long-standing tradition and they couldn't easily privatize that work and charge us over and over again for what had been paid for with tax dollars to begin with.

Re:

[Jherek Carnelian]

Likewise this is also an incentive for Caltech to continue producing usable technology if the grants don't decrease.

What's the point of federal funding in the first place if the goal is simply to produce marketable research? Seems that in a a country where capitalism is generally considered to be a good thing, there should be absolutely no federally funded research to begin with.

Re:

[Rakishi]

What's the point of federal funding in the first place if the goal is simply to produce marketable research?

First of all the government often pays for things it wants itself such as nice new weapons that current technology is not yet capable of providing (see DARPA or NASA). Second of all capitalism is not perfect thus the "generally" part and paying for basic research is not something capitalism does that well. You can consider the government to be investing money by paying for research while trusting capitalism to help out.

The government can in theory pay less to have something developed by not also buying the

Re:

[Rakishi]

As government grants need justification in order to be granted, the needed incentive is built into the system.

Government grants are downright scams in certain areas with a horribly corrupt system. In other words you want a very inefficient agency with lax oversight to control all of this? God forbid someone like Caltech is able to choose what sort of research it wants itself without the government controlling everything. After all only the government can ever know what is good research and what the people want and it's NEVER wrong.

Essentially, Caltech does not need to be run like a free market business to get things done because it (theoretically) already gets its bills paid by the government.

If it can sell the research it makes Caltech can make say 50% more money compared t

why would taxes increase?

[zogger]

Your posit is that our governmental expenses would go up. I say the exact opposite would happen, if the results were "open sourced", a variety of different people and businesses could take advantage of the new knowledge, expanding jobs and opportunities many fold over just the one company who would have exclusive "license" to use this new knowledge for x-years. I don't care how big your company is, it isn't as large as "everyone". "Everyone" will always have more points of view and a larger collective intel

Re:

[zogger]

Youtube is success. There are winners and stinkers mixed up in the huge offering there, just as you would expect, but overall it is successful. Open source software is a success, winners and stinkers, but so it goes. People are free to look at what doesn't work and what does and improve on it. Closed source you get winners and stinkers, but it is much harder to get to the nitty gritty details to see how to improve it, you have to wait for the limited set of eyeballs to do it.

Really, if you want an historica

Re:Exclusive license for federally-funded research

[Lars T.]

OK, CalTech owns part of earthmine and JPL is at CalTech. That's fine, but didn't tax dollars pay for the technology developed at JPL? IANAL, but it *used* to be that federally-funded research needed to be made available to everyone - not licensed in perpetuity to a private company.

Errm, there is a difference between "tax dollars pay for the technology developed at JPL" and "tax dollars pay for the research done at JPL".

Cue asshat politicians...

[iknownuttin]

FTFA: 3D was made for the web.

Cue asshat politicians and bureaucrats to order this service dumbed down or removed because of the potential use by terrorists.

for all U.S. Americans, and the children

[User 956]

Mars Rover Technology Used to Make Better Maps

Maps? Like such as the Iraq?

Re:

[HadesInjustice]

Iraq wouldn't work. By the time they finish taking the picture of a entire city and map it out, either the US military or some militia group would already blown up parts of the city; thus, they have to remap it again. You probably need a stable city that doesn't have severe violence and bombing that goes off every week to make this useful.

Re:

[rts008]

Not only that, but you would have to include code and sensors to detect and avoid IED's and the ever impromptu....RPG's that can pop up anywhere!

Oh shit! Helping to feed the troll. Ah well, can't be perfect EVERY day! :)

Re:

[PPH]

Check the map legend carefully for the 'WMD' symbol. Bush got it confused with the one for camel watering holes.

Trouble on the Horizon

[HadesInjustice]

This sounds like the ideal mapping project. Everytime I need to find some place in a new environment, it is always difficult to tell some building apart. And I do believe that Google Inc. is going to make some significant investment in this technology (if not buying it out entirely).

BUT! (Yes, there is always a BUT to every good news.) Anyone think that the NSA or the Homeland Security is going to be ok with this? I mean...Google Inc. already got in trouble with the NSA and Homeland with the 3D building

Re:

[QuickFox]

Just wait until they realize how detailed the actual streets are, and how terrorists could use them for planning. They'll issue orders that the actual streets be blurred.

Re:

[Alsee]

They'll issue orders that the actual streets be blurred.

Fuck, that would suck.
I hope they just order the images blurred instead.

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Only reads news titles

[moondo]

"Mars Rover Technology Used to Make Better Maps".... Does this mean it doesn't make better maps any more? //Didn't RTFA.

But *not-anymore*...

[davidsyes]

We'll do it for you in SIX MINUTES...

Googleearth

[PenGun]

These people even look at googleearth?

  Googleearth 4.2 does very accurate 3D mapping if the res is high enough. I have found nearly invisible old trails and use it's 3D powers daily. Very cool to fly down the valleys on Vancouver Island at an apparent height of say 300 meters looking for ways through to the next logging road network. I've found nearly invisible crossings through ravines and it is killer for my purposes.

  I dunno how they can do much more than bring up the resolution.

Re:

[sas-dot]

It's not just for pretty pictures as the video also says, it gives precise 3d measurements (x,y,z)which is important for many applications. Google earth is not suited for this.

Re:

[PenGun]

You buy the enterprise version for that. Does area etc. The free version does very accurate distance measurement. It shows my 30' fith wheel as 30'. Shows logs I have visited at their actual length. I dunno what more you need. I'll get the plus version to import GPS data when I go a crusin' this spring.

  Yamaha WR450F and Vancouver Island with Googleearth + GPS. Hard to beat for crazy fun ;).

Re:

[NathanBFH]

I think you underestimate the power of the technology JPL is using. I remember being enthralled with the Mars missions in the weeks preceding and following the rovers' landings. I even downloaded the public applications that JPL made available that allow them to process/view the 3D data that comes back from the rovers. It really is of a completely different quality than what Google provides. I wish I could find the links, but maybe someone else has them?

Privacy Implications

[mi]

Any time we discuss UAV-based monitoring, someone would always bring up Big Brother. Any time there is a talk about detailed databases (government or corporate), there will is talk of totalitarianism.

But collecting of very precise maps of every square meter of the ground (including all the stuff lying on it at the time of survey) does not seem to offend anyone...

I don't really agree with the doom-sayers personally, just pointing out an inconsistency here.

Re:

[dookiesan]

Watch the video. Their 3d models let you distinguish individual leaves on trees.

Close range photogrammetry

[sas-dot]

In the recent past (1- 2 decades) remote sensing satellites become capable of capturing 'stereo images' with accurate 3d measurement of features. close range photogrammetry has been there for a long time even before satellites for 3d measurements. It looks like this technology uses many close range photogrammetry lenses (covering 360 deg) to capture image, and use algorithms for geometry transformations and calibration. Hence suitable for applications using spatial measurements like public utilities. Lens

Jet Repulsion Labs

[Barryke]

I actually read Jet Repulsion Labs** serveral times over, to bad i was wrong.

** JRL / Jet Repulsion Labs - from Pinky & the Brain!
In other news, i'm shocked that Google doesn't know about JRL.
Guess they've already got the world domination kit.

MER, the mission that just keeps giving

[Cally]

The MER missions are just absolutely astonishing, and will stand out as legendary for as long as humans are exploring the solar system. January 4th 2008 will be the fourth (terrestial) anniversary of Spirit's landing, with Opportunity's on the 25th. With a design lifetime of 90 Sols now exceeded by, what is it now, twelve times? Thirteen?, dozens of hugely important and significant discoveries, movies of dust devils, and the incredible (and incredibly obscure, it seems!, anywhere outside places like UMSF..

Starcraft II

[kurzweilfreak]

Just in time for Starcraft II, so we don't have to endure a million variants on Big Game Hunters.

What do you mean not those kind of maps??

How long until they map out paper delivery routes?

[PDX]

How long until they map out paper delivery routes? I would't mind the local paper delivered by robot. And maybe even pizza delivery, it will have to cope with roving packs of dogs and teenage hackers. Can we program the GPS in cars to recognize dirt roads, dead ends, and of course too narrow streets?

Good

[Ranger]

Now, Miss South Carolina [youtube.com] will be able to find Olympus Mons and Valles Marineris.

Sent a link

[dotancohen]

I sent a link to all the idiots that I know who cry that money spent on NASA is wasted. Here is a clear example of current space technology trickling down to benefit the masses. Governments contracts be damned.

I am your density

[Alsee]

My 3D has more density than your 3D.

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But ...

[PPH]

... you'll still never be able to re-fold them properly to put them in the glove box.

PTStereo for photogrammetry

[Chris Shannon]

The reconstruction of a 3D data set from a series or photographs is pretty cool. Photosynth has this ability as well. The generation of the 3D point cloud is good and all, but I've been looking for a program that goes one step further. Creating a 3D triangle mesh using photographs as textures.

PTStereo [no.net] does just that. It is part of panotools, but unfortunately the author has not released its source. (PTStereo was only one of a few components of Panotools that is only available in binary form).

PTStereo