rick@hanauma (Richard Ottolini) (08/30/89)
The relatively poor quality of images posted on the net or in the JPL press kit are adequate for education and pleasure. If one wishes to do serious science, that is, needs to know the value and context of the original pixels themselves, join forces with the JPL primary investigators and work with the original data. It was amazing how fast the JPL were able to generate the topographic flybys of Triton shown on TV yesterday. I suppose there canned software at both Pixar and JPL that given a topography, texture, and flyby path can routinely generate a flyby movie. The greater challange is measuring topography. I understand this can be done two ways: (1) comparing multiple views, (2) measuring the size of shadows. I think Triton---The Movie was the latter.
watson@ames.arc.nasa.gov (John S. Watson) (08/31/89)
In article <4949@portia.Stanford.EDU> rick@hanauma (Richard Ottolini) writes: > >It was amazing how fast the JPL were able to generate the topographic >flybys of Triton shown on TV yesterday. It also amazes me how far computer graphics has advanced since Voyager started on its journey in 1977. Someday when they do a documentary on Voyager's entire journey, I hope they use the old graphics so we can remember what it was like way back then. P.S. Today we pulled the plug on our last Xerox SIGMA 9 computer. We had a nice little wake for it. I wonder what the world will be like when pull the plug on our last Sun. :-) John S. Watson, Civil Servant from Hell ARPA: watson@ames.arc.nasa.gov NASA Ames Research Center UUCP: ...!ames!watson Any opinions expressed herein are, like, solely the responsibility of the, like, author and do not, like, represent the opinions of NASA or the U.S. Government.
leech@cezanne.cs.unc.edu (Jonathan Leech) (09/02/89)
In article <31083@ames.arc.nasa.gov> watson@ames.arc.nasa.gov (John S. Watson) writes: >It also amazes me how far computer graphics has advanced since Voyager >started on its journey in 1977. > >Someday when they do a documentary on Voyager's entire journey, >I hope they use the old graphics so we can remember what it was like >way back then. Actually, at the end of the last Voyager Update on NASA Select (4 PM PDT 8/29), there was a several minute sequence including a lot of Jim Blinn's early Voyager footage.