Rover Model Feature; New Movies

To go along with the rover tracking feature in MMB2.0, there will soon be a "Rover Model" feature, where you can move a 3D model of the rover along the rover's actual path to see what it looks like in relation to the surroundings. UnmannedSpaceflight.com maestro Doug Ellison created the 3D rover model that MMB will use. Check it out an early version in these QuickTime movies:

Opportunity Sol 1061-1066 w/model

Spirit Summit movie

And there are some screenshots here.

New Movie - Opportunity Sols 1061-1066

Here's a new rover movie showing Opportunity's drive along the edge of "The Bay of Toil," at Victoria Crater, Mars, on sols 1061 and 1066. This is captured using MMB2.0's panorama screenshot feature. It's different from other rover movies in that the view is in ground-relative perspective instead of rover-relative perspective. There are many more sequences of images that could be captured like this.

Version 2.0Dev5

I've posted the fifth development version of MMB 2.0. This version includes:

- "Update Software" feature: The Eclipse "Update Software" feature has been added: this will make it easier to get updates to the software from now on. Just select "Update Software" from the help menu and away you go. Of course you need to download this one last version the old fashioned way, to get the software update feature.

- Panorama Info View: The Panorama Info View shows the direction, field of view, and other information about the currently viewed panorama.

- Image Info View: The Image Info View shows information about the current image.

- Separate "Get Latest Image from Exploratorium" and "Get Latest Images from JPL" menu options: I've split up the two "Get Latest Images" options. The single "Get Latest Images" option used to check both Exploratorium and JPL for new images, but when Exploratorium is up and running it is rarely necessary to check JPL, so checking just Exploratorium saves time.

The previous development version (Dev 4) also saw the introduction of the "Rover Tracking" feature, where you can see the rover tracking information visualized in the Panorama.

To download the development version of Midnight Mars Browser 2.0, you can go here

And no, this isn't meant to be an April Fools joke...