PROVIDE

Planetary Robotics Vision Data Exploitation

 Partecipanti

Mappa

 Word cloud

Esplora la "nuvola delle parole (Word Cloud) per avere un'idea di massima del progetto.

 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'The international community of planetary science and exploration has launched, landed and operated dozens of human and robotic missions to the planets and the Moon. They have collected various surface imagery that has only been partially utilized for further scientific application purposes. Few attempts have been made so far to bring these data into a unified spatial context, or to exploit spatial relationships implicit in these images, including orbiter data. PRoViDE will assemble a major portion of the imaging data gathered so far from vehicles and probes on planetary surfaces into a unique database, bringing them into a spatial context and providing access to a complete set of 3D vision products. Processing is complemented by a multi-resolution visualization engine that combines various levels of detail for a seamless and immersive real-time access to dynamically rendered 3D scene representations.

PRoViDE aims to (1) complete relevant 3D vision processing of planetary surface missions, such as Surveyor, Viking, Pathfinder, MER, MSL, Phoenix, Huygens, and Lunar ground-level panoramas & stereoscopic & multiscopic images from Apollo and Russian Lunokhod and selected Luna missions (2) provide highest resolution & accuracy remote sensing (orbital) vision data processing results for these sites to embed the robotic imagery and its products into spatial planetary context, (3) collect 3D Vision processing and remote sensing products within a single coherent spatial data base, (4) realize seamless fusion between orbital and ground vision data, (5) demonstrate the potential of planetary surface vision data by maximising image quality visualisation in 3D publishing platform , (6) collect and formulate use cases for novel scientific application scenarios exploiting the newly introduced spatial relationships and presentation, (7) demonstrate the concepts for MSL, (9) realize on-line dissemination of key data & its presentation by means of a web-based GIS and rendering tool'

Introduzione (Teaser)

Despite the numerous manned and robotic missions, planetary environments in our solar system remain vastly uncharted. Starting with the most accessible planet, Mars, EU-funded researchers are now collecting all data returned so far to assemble highly realistic 3D surface images.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

Over the last few years, international interest in global exploration of the surface of Mars, more distant planets and planetary moons has grown. In particular, a better understanding of the Martian surface morphology and geology can provide insights into the planet's origin as well as its capability to sustain long-term human presence.

However, planetary images collected by past space missions and 3D data derived from stereo images focused on specific areas of interest. The EU-funded project 'Planetary robotics vision data exploitation' (http://www.provide-space.eu/ (PROVIDE)) was launched with the aim to exploit this wealth of imaging data by bringing them into a unified spatial and temporal context.

To this end, PROVIDE partners gather into a single database large portions of data returned from spacecraft put in orbit around planets and from probes that have landed on their surfaces. By means of a WebGIS and novel geospatial processing tools, they identify spatial relationships between imaging and other data and reveal hidden content to add new value for science.

Access to the final 3D vision products will be provided through multi-resolution visualisation software that allows dynamic rendering of 3D scenes on the planets' surfaces. These digitised ground-level products will help a 'virtual geologist' to perform close-ups on key features, like sedimentary layers. In addition, it will be possible to measure distances and slopes to different levels of accuracy.

These innovative 3D vision and photogrammetry tools are expected to raise the scientific output of both past and future planetary missions. The PROVIDE team is already employing them in the geological analysis of several use cases. The lessons learned will lay the groundwork for the ExoMars mission of the European Space Agency (ESA), scheduled to be launched in 2018.