Planetary Visor is an immersive visualization tool that provides geologic and geographic context of the Martian terrain, by localizing it with spectroscopy data from the orbiting satellite. Through the use of virtual reality, we can immerse scientists in the data they study, while providing an intuitive sense of scale that is not possible with traditional tools. This technology is relevant to the ongoing operations of the Curiosity rover and will directly be able to represent the data collected in the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mission.
A large polyhedron represents a single pixel from the CRISM instrument on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), a satellite orbiting Mars. The shape of the pixel indicates the angle of incidence of the MRO when it scanned the ground. In your right hand, a spectral plotter shows the spectral CRISM reading of the pixel. As you drag the pixel around with the right hand trigger button, you can relocate the pixel, dynamically plotting captured spectra of the terrain.
For more information, please refer to our paper and specifications sheet.
This repository contains a Unity project (version 2019.4) with a cross-platform VR scene, as well as a desktop scene.
To use Planetary Visor in VR, open the “Visor Main XR scene”. To use Visor in desktop mode, open the “Desktop Visor” scene. In either one, add the data file to the Assets/Resources folder. To add the accompanying HiRISE mesh, drag it to the Assets/Resources/Images folder.
To visualize your own processed data with Planetary Visor, navigate to Assets/Resources and simply replace the the ddr.bytes file with your own. Additionally, you can add your own reflectance data by swapping out the ssa file for your own.
The Marias Pass terrain in this repository was provided by Google Creative Lab's Access Mars.
Lauren Gold, PhD Student
Alireza Bahremand, PhD Student
Kathryn Powell Planetary Scientist, Consultant
Robert LiKamWa, Principal Investigator
Connor Richards
Kyle Sese
Justin Hertzberg
Alexander Gonzalez
Zoe Purcell
Hector Taylor
Don Balanzat
Olivia Wang
Jacob Watson
Hannah Bartolomea
Alice Bao