PDA

View Full Version : Blue Mars


seanr
February 11th, 2003, 12:06 PM
This is loosely based on Kim Stanley Robinson's book of the same name.

http://www.webolutionary.com/truespace/gallery/seanr/temp/terraformed_mars2-4s.jpg
2400x1800 (http://www.webolutionary.com/truespace/gallery/seanr/temp/terraformed_mars2-4.jpg)

The new canals of Mars - canali di luce:
http://www.webolutionary.com/truespace/gallery/seanr/temp/terraformed_mars2-6s.jpg
2400x1800 (http://www.webolutionary.com/truespace/gallery/seanr/temp/terraformed_mars2-6.jpg)

http://www.webolutionary.com/truespace/gallery/seanr/temp/terraformed_mars2-7s.jpg
2400x1800 (http://www.webolutionary.com/truespace/gallery/seanr/temp/terraformed_mars2-7.jpg)


Here's a labeled map of Mars:

http://www.webolutionary.com/truespace/gallery/seanr/temp/mars_map-s.jpg

5760x2880 (http://www.webolutionary.com/truespace/gallery/seanr/temp/mars_map.jpg)
2880x1440 (http://www.webolutionary.com/truespace/gallery/seanr/temp/mars_map-l.jpg)
1440x720 (http://www.webolutionary.com/truespace/gallery/seanr/temp/mars_map-m.jpg)

You'll notice I used mostly the same names as the book did plus several extras, and a few which I have yet to label (hence it being in the WIP forum).

Proximo
February 11th, 2003, 12:08 PM
Now that is pretty damn cool. :D How long have you been working on this?

seanr
February 11th, 2003, 12:30 PM
Just a couple of days, most of that time spent waiting on Photoshop. ;)

Kakaze
February 11th, 2003, 02:49 PM
Shalbatanu, not shalbatana.


Red, Green, and Blue Mars are my bibles.


So, are you going to tell us how you're making the maps?

Kakaze
February 11th, 2003, 02:50 PM
Oh, and I see Senzeni Na, but where's Shikata Ga Nai and Zygote?

seanr
February 11th, 2003, 02:53 PM
Originally posted by Kakaze
Shalbatanu, not shalbatana.Not according to this map:
http://www.the-planet-mars.com/map-mars.html
(left of center, just below Chryse Planitia and to the left of Ares Vallis)

Was that location ever mentioned in the books? I don't remember that one.

seanr
February 11th, 2003, 02:56 PM
Originally posted by Kakaze
Oh, and I see Senzeni Na, but where's Shikata Ga Nai and Zygote? Not added yet because Blue Mars doesn't have them labeled on the map. I'll have to check the other books when I get home.

BTW, the maps were made in Photoshop, using a grayscale hightmap as an alpha mask for the various layers. By adjusting the levels of the alpha mask for each layer, you can create different elevation cutoffs, both gradual like the green area and the snow, and sharp like the water. The city locations and transportation network (seen by way of the small towns lining it) were painted by hand. The orginal PSD for the texture map ended up being over 600MB. :eek: The labeled map is only 68MB. :D

Kakaze
February 11th, 2003, 03:21 PM
Thinking about it, I don't think they were ever in the location, but Shalbatanu was mentioned several times in the book as one of the names of Mars.

Kasei, Huo-Hsing, Shalbatanu, maadim (ma'adim), Ares, Mangala, Nirgal, etc...


I see it's Shalbatana Valles on the map, which might explain the vowel change, you only have it listed as Shalbatana.

seanr
February 11th, 2003, 07:34 PM
Right. I just named the city after the valley. Labeled maps are very difficul to come by online, but one of the local univesities (www.odu.edu) does have a set in their library which I have seen, so I might go down there and take another look at them some time. ;)

Kakaze
February 11th, 2003, 07:40 PM
http://www.lns.cornell.edu/~seb/celestia/blok/

This place has more KSR cities listed geographically for you...plus, it has the grand canal from hellas to Elysium/Isidis.

seanr
February 11th, 2003, 08:18 PM
I was actually debating whether or not to add the canal. I suppose I probably will. You can see I've already stayed from the books a little bit (I rose the water over the -1 contour).

p.s. Cargile
February 11th, 2003, 09:22 PM
Cool.

What about cloud shadows?

Thomas P
February 11th, 2003, 10:23 PM
Makes me want to read the book :D

Lovely world!

Dennis
February 12th, 2003, 06:17 AM
Really sharp. I like it.

Have you seen the maps available over at www.space-graphics.com, BTW? Among others he has a "flooded Mars" map at very nice resolution -- but it's not terraformed as yours is, just has the oceans added.

The reference resources available on-line for almost anything are amazing to someone my age (bear in mind that I grew up when the term "mass media" was just coming into usage, and it referred mainly to three national broadcast networks -- two of which programmed mainly in B&W -- and a lot of independent AM radio stations. ;)).

Kakaze
February 12th, 2003, 01:47 PM
I sent an email to the space-graphics.com guy asking him how he was able to open up the MOLA maps from nasa to get the mars topo information...he never replied :(

I still can't figure out how to open those damn files. bah.

Proximo
February 12th, 2003, 02:44 PM
I can't get through to the place... I get some weird italian error message. Which sucks.

*edit* Ah wait, don't put the "www" on the beginning and it works fine. :D

rosel_sampson
February 12th, 2003, 04:10 PM
wow i like that. it makes me feel like terra forming is verry posible

Zanith
February 14th, 2003, 12:05 PM
I love the images, but I never read the book.

seanr
February 17th, 2003, 06:49 AM
Thanks.

p.s.Cargile, they're definately there, look at it a little closer. I just didn't make the mistake of positioning the clouds out in the ionosphere like everyone else seems to do.

hutt359
February 20th, 2003, 07:43 PM
Why don't you work for some tv or movie effects company. You do work in a few days that blows away some of what I have seen in the movies.

seanr
February 20th, 2003, 07:50 PM
Hutt - I'd love to, but I've got one slight problem: my interests and skills lie in a very narrow range and the market is already saturated with people better at those things than I am, using industry standard software to do them (which I am not). :D:D:D:D

Hyperspace
February 21st, 2003, 09:52 AM
Kakaze,
I sent an email to the space-graphics.com guy asking him how he was able to open up the MOLA maps from nasa to get the mars topo information...he never replied

I still can't figure out how to open those damn files. bah.

I'll show you how - unfortunately it requires some programming knowlegde.

Start by going to this link: http://wufs.wustl.edu/missions/mgs/mola/egdr.html
- The 1st link contains data in 46080 x 22528 res (UGH!) :) - but in 16 pieces
- The 2nd link contains data in 23040 x 11520res - but in 16 pieces
- The 3rd link contains what we are most likely interested in, in resolutions from 11520 x 5760 and down. Follow that link.

Once on that page, you can see that there are several kinds of maps. The only one you are interested in is the "topography" ones. Also, every resolution has a label file associayed with it (*.LBL). Let's open the one for the highest resolution:
http://wufs.wustl.edu/geodata/mgs-m-mola-5-iegdr-l3-v2/mgsl_2xxx/data/ieg0031t.lbl

Right in the middle of this text file, the following appears: (I have bolded some of the text, to show what pieces of information are important)

OBJECT = IMAGE
NAME = MEDIAN_TOPOGRAPHY
DESCRIPTION = "Each sample represents median observed
topography within a 0.03125 by 0.03125 degree area. Where no
observations lie within the area, an interpolated value is supplied.
The minimum and maximum topography observations within the current
data set are -8209. and 21300 meters. Topography is the planetary
radius minus the areoid radius at a given longitude and latitude."
LINES = 5760 (This is the height/Y-res)
LINE_SAMPLES = 11520 (This is the width/X-res)
SAMPLE_TYPE = MSB_INTEGER
SAMPLE_BITS = 16 (This, with the line above, tells is that the data is stored as a 16 bit signed integer)
UNIT = METER
MINIMUM = -8182 (Useful if we want to remap the altitudes to a 0-255 8 bit range)
MAXIMUM = 21198 (Useful if we want to remap the altitudes to a 0-255 8 bit range)
END_OBJECT = IMAGE

So knowing that, "all you have to do" is to write a simple program that reads in the binary data, outputting it to your favorite format. :)

Proximo
February 21st, 2003, 12:40 PM
I wonder if it'd be possible to do that in php.

Kakaze
February 21st, 2003, 02:06 PM
Write a simple programme that reads binary data!

I don't even remember how to tell basic to write something on command.

What I did find, however, is a programme put out by Nasa itself that will open them. I never would've found it if I didn't click on a page unrelated to the MOLA data.

Only problem, however, is that the Nasa programme doesn't open the images consistantly. They all have different values and need to be corrected before being tiled. I emailed them and they said they'd look into it, I'm hoping they'll have a solution.

The guy at space-graphics.com finally got back to me...the night I posted that, actually. He said he used a programme called 3DEM to do it, only problem is 3DEM only opens up a 4096x4096 slice of the map at any one time. And, I have to export it to Terragen and from there to Raw to be able to use it as a heightmap.

Kakaze
February 21st, 2003, 03:06 PM
Damnit.

You said they were binary and the lable file has details about the size and stuff.

That got me to thinking, maybe I could use photoshop to open them as RAW files.

Well, Photoshop will open them, but no matter how I change the settings it doesn't get them right. bah. So they are raw files, but there must be some extraneous data added in there that's confusing Photoshop.

Hyperspace
February 21st, 2003, 05:02 PM
They are indeed RAW files - but 16-bit raw files. Otherwise PaintShop Pro and Photoshop would be able to open them just fine.

I could slap together a simple Java program for you if you want that could convert it to a "regular" 8-bit RAW file, if you have a Java VM installed. (My C++ skills are a bit rusty) :)

seanr
February 21st, 2003, 05:44 PM
What about conveting them to 16bit jpegs? Photoshop 7 does support 16bit jpegs, which would allow you to do more things with levels adjustments (like the mehods I used to create the Blue Mars textures) without losing much data (any data, compared to the 8bit files).

Kakaze
February 21st, 2003, 08:12 PM
Photoshop can open 16bit raw files.

seanr
February 21st, 2003, 11:45 PM
Kakaze, which version? Older versions probably can't.

Kakaze
February 22nd, 2003, 12:24 AM
7

Elowan
February 22nd, 2003, 04:58 AM
Originally posted by Kakaze
Oh, and I see Senzeni Na, but where's Shikata Ga Nai and Zygote?

Shikata Ga Nai? Isn't that 'never mind' in Japanese?

Kakaze
February 22nd, 2003, 02:34 PM
I can't remember the translation. I know one of the two means something like "what have we done". I need to reread the books, it's been ages.

seanr
February 22nd, 2003, 06:18 PM
"shikata ga nai" means "there is no other choice; it's all we can do -- the only possible thing " and "senzeni na" means "what have we done?"

Kakaze
February 22nd, 2003, 09:51 PM
Yay! I knew one of them was "what have we done?"

hutt359
February 22nd, 2003, 10:08 PM
Seanr, Your work that I see on this board and scifi meshes is a hell of alot better than most of the CGI i see in the films. It's almost scarry to think of what you could do with "industry standard" stuff.

Your interiors are at the point where they look like set photos. I hade one up on my cousins computer while on vacation. Her and my aunt thought they were photos of new sets for NEM.


Keep up the good work.

Kakaze
February 25th, 2003, 10:14 PM
Originally posted by Kakaze


Only problem, however, is that the Nasa programme doesn't open the images consistantly. They all have different values and need to be corrected before being tiled. I emailed them and they said they'd look into it, I'm hoping they'll have a solution.


I found out why the images aren't consistant when I open them seperately...the programmes use the values in the tile being opened to adjust the brightness/contrast of the outputted image. If it could use the values over the entire set of 16 tiles, or there was a way to tell it what the maximum and minimum values were the images would open consistantly.

:sigh:

Kakaze
June 30th, 2003, 10:17 PM
I've been reading the books since this, and I'm almost through with Blue Mars now...

I've come to realise that the map in Blue Mars is completely inaccurate to the actual planet. There's no way to flood the topo map to get the same results as shown on the map in the book.

It was written before Global Surveyor, but still, there should've been other fairly reliable data around to use, one would think...

:sigh:

seanr
July 1st, 2003, 10:04 AM
Kakaze, it's not that far off. The line was drawn more or les right on the -1 contour, and though it wobbles to one side or the other in places, on the whole it's fairly accurate.

Kakaze
July 1st, 2003, 01:04 PM
What about the glaring innaccuracies concerning Boone's neck and Elysium?

Generally it's mostly accurate, but there are several major things that aren't.

Plus, notice there is no island in the centre of the Hellas Basin?

Proximo
July 2nd, 2003, 02:34 AM
I would call it narative convenience, personally. At worst, you could imagine that it's in a parallel unvierse where the topology of Mars is slightly different ;) But yeah, narative convenience would probably demand features that weren't actually there for a bit more.. I dunno, excitement probably isn't the right word for it. :)

Kakaze
July 2nd, 2003, 02:53 PM
Bah.

I've been thinking of writing KSR a letter about it.

I mean, after all the meticulous research he had to've put in to write the damn thing, he lets something as fundamental as the topology of the planet waver?

seanr
July 3rd, 2003, 02:57 PM
This si all just a ridiculous nitpick, IMHO. Who cares? The maps in the books are VERY rough - they are mere intended as story aids, not as acurate maps of Mars. If you want an accurate Mars map, I suggest you go to the nearest large library (a University library would most likely have them) and look at the official maps.

Kakaze
July 3rd, 2003, 03:05 PM
Like someone else told me years ago when I first started reading the books: If KSR was going for fiction he would've thrown the "face" into the books. But instead he was going for as accurate a representation of the planet as possible so he didn't do that.

Red_ufo
July 3rd, 2003, 04:00 PM
Wow that looks excellent, It really does...cheers