Fusion and Visualization of HiRISE Super-Resolution, Shape-from-Shading DTM with MER Stereo 3D Reconstructions

The FP7-SPACE project PRoViDE has assembled a major portion of the imaging data gathered so far from rover vehicles, landers and probes on extra-terrestrial planetary surfaces into a unique database, bringing them into a common planetary geospatial context and providing access to a complete set of 3D vision products. One major aim of PRoViDE is the fusion between orbiter and rover image products. To close the gap between HiRISE imaging resolution (down to 25cm for the OrthoRectified image (ORI), down to 1m for the DTM) and surface vision products, images from multiple HiRISE acquisitions are combined into a super resolution data set (Tao & Muller, 2014), increasing to 5cm resolution the Ortho images. Furthermore, shape-from-shading is applied to one of the ORIs at its original resolution for refinement of the HiRISE DTM, leading to DTM ground resolutions of up to 25 cm. After texture-based co-registration with these refined orbiter 3D products, MER PanCam and NavCam 3D image products can be smoothly pasted into a multi-resolution 3D data representation. Typical results from the MER mission are presented by a dedicated real-time rendering tool which is fed by a hierarchical 3D data structure that is able to cope with all involved scales from global planetary scale down to close-up reconstructions in the mm range. This allows us to explore and analyze the geological characteristics of rock outcrops, for example the detailed geometry and internal features of sedimentary rock layers, to aid paleoenvironmental interpretation. This integrated approach enables more efficient development of geological models of martian rock outcrops. The rendering tool also provides measurement tools to obtain geospatial data of surface points and distances between them. We report on novel scientific use cases and the added value potential of the resultant high-quality data set and presentation means to support further geologic investigations. The research leading to these results has received funding from the EC's 7th Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement n° 312377.