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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 37 records · Page 2
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2012

Large Terrain Continuous Level of Detail 3D Visualization Tool

This software solved the problem of displaying terrains that are usually too large to be displayed on standard workstations in real time. The software can visualize terrain data sets composed of billions of vertices, and can display these data sets at greater than 30 frames per second. The Large Terrain Continuous Level of Detail 3D Visualization Tool allows large terrains, which can be composed of billions of vertices, to be visualized in real time. It utilizes a continuous level of detail technique called clipmapping to support this. It offloads much of the work involved in breaking up the terrain into levels of details onto the GPU (graphics processing unit) for faster processing.

Myint, Steven↗
NASA NTRS2005

Photo-realistic Terrain Modeling and Visualization for Mars Exploration Rover Science Operations

Modern NASA planetary exploration missions employ complex systems of hardware and software managed by large teams of. engineers and scientists in order to study remote environments. The most complex and successful of these recent projects is the Mars Exploration Rover mission. The Computational Sciences Division at NASA Ames Research Center delivered a 30 visualization program, Viz, to the MER mission that provides an immersive, interactive environment for science analysis of the remote planetary surface. In addition, Ames provided the Athena Science Team with high-quality terrain reconstructions generated with the Ames Stereo-pipeline. The on-site support team for these software systems responded to unanticipated opportunities to generate 30 terrain models during the primary MER mission. This paper describes Viz, the Stereo-pipeline, and the experiences of the on-site team supporting the scientists at JPL during the primary MER mission.

Edwards, Laurence↗
NASA NTRS2004

Terrain Modelling for Immersive Visualization for the Mars Exploration Rovers

Immersive environments are being used to support mission operations at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. This technology contributed to the Mars Pathfinder Mission in planning sorties for the Sojourner rover and is being used for the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) missions. The stereo imagery captured by the rovers is used to create 3D terrain models, which can be viewed from any angle, to provide a powerful and information rich immersive visualization experience. These technologies contributed heavily to both the mission success and the phenomenal level of public outreach achieved by Mars Pathfinder and MER. This paper will review the utilization of terrain modelling for immersive environments in support of MER.

immersive environments↗
NASA NTRS2023

Addition of First-Person Visualization Capabilities to the Glenn Research Center Communication Analysis Suite (GCAS)

The ability to visualize large sets of data is important to giving an understanding of abstract ideas to large groups. With the ability to visualize the terrain of lunar surfaces in three dimensions from both an orbital and first-person view, the capabilities of the Glenn Research Center Communication Analysis Suite (GCAS) will have expanded to allow specific landing sites to be seen more realistically. GCAS will utilize GeoTIFF-based data to visualize the lunar terrain.

ECMAScript↗
NASA NTRS2011

High-Performance 3D Articulated Robot Display

In the domain of telerobotic operations, the primary challenge facing the operator is to understand the state of the robotic platform. One key aspect of understanding the state is to visualize the physical location and configuration of the platform. As there is a wide variety of mobile robots, the requirements for visualizing their configurations vary diversely across different platforms. There can also be diversity in the mechanical mobility, such as wheeled, tracked, or legged mobility over surfaces. Adaptable 3D articulated robot visualization software can accommodate a wide variety of robotic platforms and environments. The visualization has been used for surface, aerial, space, and water robotic vehicle visualization during field testing. It has been used to enable operations of wheeled and legged surface vehicles, and can be readily adapted to facilitate other mechanical mobility solutions. The 3D visualization can render an articulated 3D model of a robotic platform for any environment. Given the model, the software receives real-time telemetry from the avionics system onboard the vehicle and animates the robot visualization to reflect the telemetered physical state. This is used to track the position and attitude in real time to monitor the progress of the vehicle as it traverses its environment. It is also used to monitor the state of any or all articulated elements of the vehicle, such as arms, legs, or control surfaces. The visualization can also render other sorts of telemetered states visually, such as stress or strains that are measured by the avionics. Such data can be used to color or annotate the virtual vehicle to indicate nominal or off-nominal states during operation. The visualization is also able to render the simulated environment where the vehicle is operating. For surface and aerial vehicles, it can render the terrain under the vehicle as the avionics sends it location information (GPS, odometry, or star tracking), and locate the vehicle over or on the terrain correctly. For long traverses over terrain, the visualization can stream in terrain piecewise in order to maintain the current area of interest for the operator without incurring unreasonable resource constraints on the computing platform. The visualization software is designed to run on laptops that can operate in field-testing environments without Internet access, which is a frequently encountered situation when testing in remote locations that simulate planetary environments such as Mars and other planetary bodies.

Powell, Mark W.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Directed Illumination of Sunlight Collimated and Observed Beneath A Lunar Lander (DISCOBaLL): Structured Illumination for a Lunar Surface Photogrammetry System

A lighting system has been developed to provide structured illumination allowing photogrammetry to be performed during and after landing on extraterrestrial bodies. The system, known as Directed Illumination of Sunlight Collimated and Observed Beneath a Lunar Lander (DISCOBaLL), provides patterned lighting suitable for two- and multiple-camera photogrammetry, allowing several different measurements to be obtained including pre-landing terrain shape, visualization and localization of the ejecta sheet during landing, and post-landing terrain shape enabling quantitative measurement of plume-induced cratering. The paper explains the methodology of designing the DISCOBaLL, describes multiple prototypes, and shows the performance of these prototypes using actual solar radiation in a laboratory setting.

Plume-Surface Interaction↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Directed Illumination of Sunlight Collimated and Observed Beneath a Lunar Lander (DISCOBaLL): Structured Illumination For a Lunar Surface Photogrammetry System

A lighting system has been developed to provide structured illumination allowing photogrammetry to be performed during and after landing on extraterrestrial bodies. The system, known as Directed Illumination of Sunlight Collimated and Observed Beneath a Lunar Lander (DISCOBaLL), provides patterned lighting suitable for two- and multiple-camera photogrammetry, allowing several different measurements to be obtained including pre-landing terrain shape, visualization and localization of the ejecta sheet during landing, and post-landing terrain shape enabling quantitative measurement of plume-induced cratering. The paper explains the methodology of designing the DISCOBaLL, describes multiple prototypes, and shows the performance of these prototypes using actual solar radiation in a laboratory setting.

Lunar Regolith↗
NASA NTRS2009

Hazard Detection Methods for Lunar Landing

The methods and experiences from the Apollo Program are fundamental building blocks for the development of lunar landing strategies for the Constellation Program. Each of the six lunar landing Apollo missions landed under near ideal lighting conditions. The astronauts visually performed terrain relative navigation while looking out of windows, and were greatly aided by external communication and well lit scenes. As the LM approached the landing site, the astronauts performed visual hazard detection and avoidance, also under near-ideal lighting conditions. The astronauts were looking out of the windows trying to the best of their ability to avoid rocks, slopes, and craters and find a safe landing location. NASA has expressed a desire for global lunar access for both crewed and robotic sortie lunar exploration missions (Cook, 2007) (Dale, 2006). Early NASA architecture studies have identified the lunar poles as desirable locations for early lunar missions. These polar missions have less than ideal lighting conditions and will significantly affect the way a crewed vehicle plans to land at such locales. Consequently, a variety of hazard identification methods should be considered for use by the crew to ensure a high degree of safety. This paper discusses such identification methods applicable to the poorly lit polar lunar environment, better ensuring global access for the soon to be designed Lunar Lander Vehicle (LLV).

Brady, Tye↗
NASA NTRS1991

Real-time simulation of helicopter air-to-air combat

The AUTOMAN computer program develops automated maneuvering decisions for helicopters during air-to-air combat over hilly terrain. Recently, the capabilities of this program have been extended and enhanced significantly. The revised program was installed at the NASA Ames manned flight-simulation facility to drive a computer-generated image of an enemy helicopter, thereby providing an adversary for the human pilot. Maneuvers are selected by employing game theory. Enhancements include a guidance law for target acquisition when a firing opportunity arises; fire-control sequence logic; improved low-flying capabilities; line-of-sight computations for the cockpit field-of-view, terrain obstructions, and visual range limits; use of terrain for masking; air-to-air collision-avoidance maneuvers; decision on dispensing flares and chaff; and adjustable levels of pilot experience. The program was found to be extremely useful for both rotorcraft handling-quality evaluations and air-to-air combat training.

Austin, Fred↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Celestial Mapping System

Celestial Mapping System (CMS) is a software platform developed by Dr. Agrawal’s team to generate virtual 3D globes for celestial bodies. Various layers are built on top of the virtual globe to provide visualization for high-resolution imagery, enable precise measurements, build analytical capabilities and broad range of functionalities to assist planetary scientists and mission planners. In her June 14th presentation, Dr. Agrawal will showcase the user interactive software platform to virtually travel the lunar terrain, place rovers and instruments on the surface of the moon and perform measurements of various geological features including permanently shadowed regions. Her team’s future goals include building interactive 3D globes for other planetary bodies such as Venus, Mars, and Titan in the solar system.

GIS system↗
NASA NTRS1993

Design and test of an object-oriented GIS to map plant species in the Southern Rockies

Elevational and latitudinal shifts occur in the flora of the Rocky Mountains due to long term climate change. In order to specify which species are successfully migrating with these changes, and which are not, an object-oriented, image-based geographic information system (GIS) is being created to animate evolving ecological regimes of temperature and precipitation. Research at the Earth Data Analysis Center (EDAC) is developing a landscape model that includes the spatial, spectral and temporal domains. It is designed to visualize migratory changes in the Rocky Mountain flora, and to specify future community compositions. The object-oriented database will eventually tag each of the nearly 6000 species with a unique hue, intensity, and saturation value, so their movements can be individually traced. An associated GIS includes environmental parameters that control the distribution of each species in the landscape, and satellite imagery is used to help visualize the terrain. Polygons for the GIS are delineated as landform facets that are static in ecological time. The model manages these facets as a triangular irregular net (TIN), and their analysis assesses the gradual progression of species as they migrate through the TIN. Using an appropriate climate change model, the goal will be to stop the modeling process to assess both the rate and direction of species' change and to specify the changing community composition of each landscape facet.

Morain, Stanley A.↗
NASA NTRS1993

The effect of scene content on speed, time, and distance perception

Helicopter flights performed at low-levels place high demands on pilots; they must simultaneously control the vehicle, avoid obstacles, and navigate. Therefore, pilots must correlate cues viewed in the external scene with information on map in order to maintain their geographical orientation. This is a particularly difficult task when helicopter pilots fly through visually unfamiliar terrain without highly detailed maps. As a result, pilots must often use estimates of elapsed time, distance traveled, and/or average speed in order to maintain a flight path indicated on a map during flight segments when these cues are absent. Therefore, the current study is concerned with the perception of speed, time, and distance, which we assume underlies the ability to orient oneself during these types of flight segments.

Awe, Cynthia A.↗
NASA NTRS2005

Modeling and Visualizing Flow of Chemical Agents Across Complex Terrain

Release of chemical agents across complex terrain presents a real threat to homeland security. Modeling and visualization tools are being developed that capture flow fluid terrain interaction as well as point dispersal downstream flow paths. These analytic tools when coupled with UAV atmospheric observations provide predictive capabilities to allow for rapid emergency response as well as developing a comprehensive preemptive counter-threat evacuation plan. The visualization tools involve high-end computing and massive parallel processing combined with texture mapping. We demonstrate our approach across a mountainous portion of North California under two contrasting meteorological conditions. Animations depicting flow over this geographical location provide immediate assistance in decision support and crisis management.

Kao, David↗