2.0 Dev 14

A little fix: the processor usage was reading high, even when the program should have been idle. Thanks to Doug over at Unmanned Spaceflight for pointing it out. I think the fix even boosts the performance a bit, but it's hard to tell.

Goals

Eagle-eyed readers may notice that there is a new mission statement for the project, over on the right-hand side there. (It's under the heading that says "Mission Statement".) Currently MMB2.0 is a program directed at a small set of fairly hard-core space enthusiasts, who already know quite a bit about the robotic Mars missions. My new goal is turn MMB2.0 into a program that anyone can download and start learning about the Mars Exploration Rover missions immediately. The way I intend to do that, in short, is to bring back the "Browser" in Midnight Mars Browser.

Right now the program could more accurately be called "Midnight Mars Downloader" - it is geared toward downloading images from the missions, and then viewing them. In contrast, a true "Browser" would mean wandering around "areas", and having the images download more-or-less automatically as needed. This is not a trivial excercise with missions as data-rich as the rovers, where there are many gigabytes of image data involved. Managing how much data is stored on a user's computer may be a challenge. But for our new target audience of casual users, especially ones who can't dedicate 10 gigabytes or more of hard drive space to MER image storage, this is the way to go.

A secondary shift here is one from where MMB was a program for following the latest images in the ongoing rover missions, to a mode where it is more a record of the missions gone by. This would be a natural progression to begin now, since the rovers are moving slowly with age these days, having already been successful beyond anyone's dreams. One could eventually view the software as a new "book" about the rovers. The content is data made publicly available by NASA; the program is just a new way to gather and organize it.

That's the plan. The good news is, a lot of the program is already in place. The changes just made with regard to movement in panorama mode (see the previous post) are a step in this direction. But there's a lot of work yet to get to this goal, and as always, it's just a spare-time project. So we'll see how things go. If you can support the project, please consider donating. Even a supportive comment on the blog would be appreciated.

2.0 Dev 13 - Movement by clicking on hotspots

In panorama mode, the rover model now automatically appears in position when you hover the mouse over a 'hotspot' in the rover tracking. And, when you click on the hotspot, the panorama view now shifts to that position. So now you can wander around in the rovers' footsteps just by clicking with the mouse.

As usual, you can download the latest here, or if you already have 2.0, you can use the "Update Software" feature in the Help menu.

Website Update

I've updated to a new Blogger template, and updated the site to emphasize MMB 2.0. Blogger's new template editing features are pretty impressive. Okay, maybe they're not that new, I just haven't been paying attention until now.

Also I've enabled comments once again - but with moderation turned on, to avoid spam.

Oh, and, if you use Midnight Mars Browser and want to support the project, the "Donate" button is back, over on the right.

Google Code

The Midnight Mars Browser project is now hosted here at Google Code. Google Code is a fantastic place for hosting small open-source software projects like MMB. Setup and administration is a breeze (so far, anyway), which is particularly important for a spare-time developer without a lot of spare time. I'll be updating the site with additional documentation, and updating the issues list, as time allows.

Metadata Vacation

Metadata updates will resume on January 2.

The rovers are moving so slowly these days, I'm guessing not much will happen for the next week anyway.

2.0 Dev Release 10

This update to 2.0 sees some reorganization to make it easier and less confusing to browse images.

The "Locations" view has been replaced by a new "Time Intervals" view. Previously, MMB panoramas contained all the images from one location. This doesn't always work very well, since increasingly, the rovers are staying in one place for long periods of time, and images often overlap. So now, panoramas and slideshows are organized by "time intervals".

In the "Viewer Settings" there is a new "Time intervals" section with controls for how panoramas and slideshows are split up. The options are:

- "Split by location": Images are grouped by rover location.
- "Split by sol": Images are grouped by sol (day)
- "Split by elapse minutes": Images are grouped by time interval. A new time interval is created if there are more than X minutes between images.



Another change is that the "Images" view now shows images from the currently viewed time interval only. The selected time interval is displayed at the top of the view.



So for example, take Spirit's "McMurdo" pan, which was split over two different rover locations (technically; actually the rover did not move). You can use the new controls to browse, in panorama mode, each day's images separately. Or, you can view the images from each location separately. Or, you can now (for the first time in MMB) view the entire panorama, including both locations at once - by specifying the start sol (809) and the end sol (1009), and turning off all the "split by" options. Here's a view:



As usual, you can get the latest version by using the Update Software feature. If you update, you may see an "unable to restore all workbench views" dialog the first time you start up. This is because the Locations view no longer exists; just click "ok" and open the Time Intervals view using the Windows menu.

You can also download the whole thing from here.

Yeah!

What a great idea: Spirit and Opportunity '08!!! At last, a ticket I
can really get behind.

http://rising-hegemon.blogspot.com/2007/10/example-of-good-return-on-govt-money.html

Sent from my iPhone