Project Gale Crater

[astrosammy]

Still a lot of work to do, but for those who can't wait to land there, here's a mesh of MSL Curiosity's target, with a scenario of Shuttle-A standing at the targeted landing site at landing day.
Around that position, vessels will stand on the surface of the mesh, so they will not sink through or float above it.

Looks best with D3D9 client.

Download it here:
Gale111129.zip

for older GPUs here's a texture with lower resolution (also needs the file above):
GaleLowTex111129.zip

The mesh has a size of 279 x 279 kilometers, texture resolution around 215 pixels/km², heightmap resolution 0.8 pixel/km² (had some weird issues in Orbiter at higher resolutions).

I'm still searching for images with higher quality, so feel free to post anything you find.

 

[astrosammy]

New version above. I played with Urwumpe's Anim8or to msh script, and now the mesh fits to the planets sphere. I'm thinking of creating a completely new mesh to make the transition smoother.

This is the function I used to fit the mesh to the sphere:
[math]Y=\sqrt{-x^2-z^2+r^2}-r+y[/math] Y is the new height, x and z are position and y the old height, r the planets radius.

 

[orb]

Yes, I know that we have that LaTeX stuff, still have to learn it

To help learning:

[PLAIN][math]Y=\sqrt{-x^2-z^2+r^2}-r+y[/math][/PLAIN]

 

[astrosammy]

Well, far easier than I thought. Thank you!

 

[boogabooga]

Is it for Mars L11?

 

[astrosammy]

It (should) work(s) with every Mars texture. However the texture fits best to Mars L11.