Augmented reality could help scientists find microscopic signs of life in the most extreme environments.
— NASA Astrobiology: Exploring Life in the Universe (@NASAAstrobio) November 7, 2022
Meet Dr. Stephen Scheidt and Dr. Zachary Morse, two scientists putting new field work technology to the test inside Hawaii’s lava caves. pic.twitter.com/hKOpvo2wRN
Category Archives: Uncategorized
RISE2 Field Campaign Kilbourne Hole, NM 2022
RISE2 Field Campaign to Kilbourne Hole, NM 2021
Field Campaign in Iceland 2021
Capturing Aerial Images from UAVs in Iceland 2019
Science, Art and Engineering
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- UPDATE: This made my day.
My main function: analyze geospatial data on the computer. The data show images looking down at Earth and Mars and are interesting to look at: lava flows, sand dunes, river channels, mountains. These are valuable to science, but the patterns and abstractness have artistic value. Many people recognize this and celebrate this by contributing to The Art of Planetary Science Exhibition in Tucson, AZ. There were many submissions from almost a hundred artists, and I’m happy to be one this year in 2018. I carved a HiRISE DTM, my first completed 3D carve of topography. I’m happy with the way it turned out!
Description of Piece: A place on Mars in miniature Fissure and Channel Southeast of Olympus Mons. Carved by a homemade computer numerical control (CNC) milling machine; surface tone painted by hand. Image data were provided by The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera in orbit around Mars, which were processed into a digital terrain model by the HiRISE Science Team.
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- The location of the data is from a location (square mark) east of Olympus Mons, Mars.
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- Perspective digital rendering of the HiRISE visible image data showing the fissure and channels.
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- Perspective digital rendering of the HiRISE DTM data.
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- This is the table top of my CNC machine. On the right is a practice carve, aka, attempt No. 1.
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- Carving in progress. You can’t see the spindle and milling bit because of the dust shoe. A 4″ hose is connected to a blower, pulling dust off the piece as it carves.
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- This is the completed carve after roughing (1/4″ square end mill, 1500 mmpm, 3 mm doc) and finishing (1/16″ ball end mill, 1500 mmpm, 0.254 doc, 0.33 mm stepover). I would definitely do it differently next time as I made many mistakes. Even though a machine is doing the carving, there are still plenty of “artistic” choice to make.
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- Because of the scale of the model, topography is subtle. The large cut in the middle is actually about 500 meters wide. On the model, it’s only about 1.5 cm.
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- Finished it with a black border, a typical view when viewing satellite data on a computer. Hand painted the surface. Ready for this weekend’s exhibition.
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- Just another view. I was experimenting with the piece upside down. (The bottom is North.)
RIS4E Field Campaign Aden Volcanic Field, NM 2017
Iceland Field Campaign 2016
I have to admit: Flying an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) such as the Trimble UX5-HP is a lot easier than flying a kite over lava flows. We covered several square kilometers in no time with this bird! There were two location: the south of Iceland (the Laki lava flow) and in the north of Iceland (the Holuhraun lava flow). We worked with a great group of students in the field participating in the Keck Geology Consortium. They helped us run our mobile UAV airport! I’ll post more details about our field work and the student projects soon. For now, here are a few images of us doing our volcanological mapping. The data will result in orthoimage data at 1-4 cm per pixel, and digital terrain models at 10 cm per pixel!
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- This is a taste of the data we’re creating at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. On the left is an orthoimage of a series of cones along a fissure in the Laki lava flow. On the right is a colorized digital terrain model (DTM) of the same area. No scale; map oriented north.
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- Setting up for launch near the Holuhraun lava flow
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- Ground control; our mobile UAV port.
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- Stepping through launch preparations with Dr. Christopher Hamilton.
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- Removing the pitot tube cover just before launch.
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- Somewhere out there is an expensive bird that we’re tracking.
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- Going through post-flight checklist.
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- It took several flights to cover the area surrounding the vent of the Holuhraun lava flow with the UX5-HP.
Video Goes Live on NASA Hyperwall
PI Tim Glotch discussing the scales at which we observe the Solar System on the NASA Hyperwall. #AGU15 pic.twitter.com/DGPTzwGeos
— RIS4E Science (@RIS4E_SSERVI) December 18, 2015
Check out the full video I created using the image and digital terrain model collected using a kite aerial photography (KAP) system.
Kite Aerial Photogrammetry of Mud Volcanoes
I have created several digital, three dimensional (3D) models of interesting geologic features over the past few years. This page will catalog a number of these projects and provide examples. In my blog, I plan to describe the methods I’ve used to collect, create and display the data. To get started, I’ve included a small example of the mud volcanoes or “mud pots” that are located near the Salton Sea in California. I visited these features recently during a Lunar and Planetary Laboratory (LPL) field trip in October 2015. Below is a 3D viewer. If you want to explore in more detail, select the “Expand” link. Below the model is an embedded web map showing their location. More on this site and the field trip in a future blog post.
3D View of Mud Volcanoes near the Salton Sea, California
Location Map
Field Photo of the Camera Flying over the Mud Volcanoes
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- Here I am setting up the camera to fly over the mud volcanoes. Photo credit: Ali Bramson
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