JackDesBwa
This is a stereoscopic (3D) panorama of 360° assembled from some photos taken by the rover Perseverance in Jezero crater on Mars. There are 46 photos split in two rows for each eye. The photos were taken by the stereoscopic camera Mastcam-Z on Sol 11 of the mission, which was 2021-03-02 on Earth. The sound is a mix of captures from the microphone of the SuperCam. When needed, visual enjoyment was preferred over scientific accuracy.
This panorama is exported in two versions.
The first is posted on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/Vod4pjcLH7k It is made for VR headsets as a 5.7k VR360-3D video. In such devices, you can turn your head and see the landscape with depth around you. First feedbacks suggest that the YoutubeVR application gives a low definition image, and that you get better result with a browser, or downloading the video and playing it locally.
The other posted on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/mNoj5fQ_W4g It is made for classical flat screens as a 4k stereoscopic video where the camera pans to show the whole panorama. The depth can be seen with a variety of appropriate devices, the cheapest one (but with color sacrifices) being anaglyph (red/cyan) glasses.
The rover Perseverance currently on planet Mars sends photographs of its cameras on a regular basis. They are automatically added to a public repository when they arrive. Of course, they are often of low interest for the wide public as raw images, but there are some interesting shots to develop like this series.
The robot has several stereoscopic cameras onboard. The Mastcam-Z which took the images used for this panorama has color filters wheel (here visible spectrum was set), a color sensor (with Bayer filter), a zoom (approximately 19° HFOV for each photo here) and focus. Its stereoscopic base is 24.2 centimeters.
The assemblage was not easy, and the computer crashed several times, often because of lack of RAM to process the images or create the video. There remain some parts where the stitching is not perfect, but trying to get a better result is long and risky, so I preferred to stop with this already cool panorama.
The raw photographs can be found here and are credited to NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS.
The rover image is based on my stereoscopic render: https://stereopix.net/photo:koUNd8KxLG/
The video was created exclusively with libre software: Hugin was the main tool used to assemble the images; Darktable was used to pre-process the images, mainly to cut black borders and apply color balance computed with the color target on the rover; Blender was used to orient and render the model of the rover; Audacity was used to play with the sounds; Gimp allowed to finalize the image before its transformation to video, in particular to cut its top and bottom edges; Inkscape was used to draw the elements around the photo; FFmpeg was used to create the video from the panorama, sound and visual elements.
March 2, 2021