Mars Images in 3D

NASA (actually JPL) is currently publishing raw images from Mars. Many of these images form left-right stereo pairs.

Almost all the Navigation images and many of the Panoramic images are available as stereo pairs. When you examine the url's, you can determine which images are stereo pairs - the url's are identical except for the L & R in the 8th position from the end of the url. For instance, the following urls's are from the Spirit Panoramic Camera and were taken on Sol 010 (the 10th day after landing).

  http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/2/p/010/2P127247092EFF0211P2216R2M1.JPG
  http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/2/p/010/2P127247092EFF0211P2216L2M1.JPG
                                                                            ^
                                                 ^^^ Day image was taken
                                               ^ Camera
                                             ^ 1=Opportunity 2=Spirit

Most of the better Panoramic camera stereo images are taken with filter 2 (red) on both cameras. Thus L2 and R2 make a good stereo pair. The Navigation and Hazard cameras do not have changable filters, so they are always L0 and R0.

The following images are a stereo pair - cross your eyes and force the 2 images to fuse into a single 3D image. When you cross your eyes, the Left eye will look directly at the image on the Right side of the monitor and Right eye will look directly at the image on the Left. When the landmarks (rocks and hills) in the 2 images overlap, your brain will interpret the scene as having depth.

Well, that works pretty good except for a few points

The images are shown here at about one forth of their acutal size, that means that you are not seeing them at their full detail
The images on the NASA site are not displayed as Left-Right pairs, you need to do this yourself to see them in 3D

To some extent, I have solved these problems (or at least reduced them). I have written a program (sorry, for PCs only) that displays stereo pairs side by side at full resolution. Since there is no way that 2 images of that size can be displayed on a normal monitor, the program allows you to scroll the images.

To use this you just need to download and run MarsImages.exe.

Images in 2 Browser Windows

Another way to see stereo images is to open them in 2 separate browser windows - one for each image (eye).

These images can be viewed in 3D - just cross your eyes. To see these at full resolution, click on the images. The url's are configured so that they automatically open in left and right browsers. Reduce the width of the browsers so that they both fit on the screen and place the Left image on the Right side of the monitor and the Right on the Left. When you cross your eyes, you will see a single image in stereo.

Some browsers automatically resize large images so that they "fit" the browser - in most cases, you want to disable this. It means that now you need to scroll the images to see them, but you will see a lot more detail. It helps to find a prominent rock and place it at the same height in each image. Now cross your eyes and "merge" the rock.

Right eye	Left eye	Description
		Spirit Panoramic Camera :: Sol 010 Sand ripples
		Spirit Panoramic Camera :: Sol 013 Several very thin objects, some with holes Scroll sideways ~50% to center 2 thin objects
		Spirit Panoramic Camera :: Sol 016
		Spirit Panoramic Camera :: Sol 016

I have a page with additional Stereo Images that are are configured to display in 2 browser windows.

Panoramic Camera Filters

             LEFT CAMERA                      RIGHT CAMERA 
 
       L1. EMPTY                        R1. 430 (SP) *   Violet
       L2. 750 (20)      Rusty Red      R2. 750 (20)     Rusty Red
       L3. 670 (20)      Red            R3. 800 (20)     IR
       L4. 600 (20)      Orange         R4. 860 (25)     IR 
       L5. 530 (20)      Green          R5. 900 (25)     IR
       L6. 480 (25)      Blue           R6. 930 (30)     IR
       L7. 430 (SP)*     Violet         R7. 980 (LP)*    IR
       L8. 440 Solar ND                 R8. 880 Solar ND 
 
*SP indicates short-pass filter; LP indicates long-pass filter 
 
From Table 2.1.2-1: Pancam Multispectral Filter Set: Wavelength (and Bandpass) in nm 
With color names added by me

Additional Notes

Pathfinder images can also be seen in this viewer.

This viewer is still under development, so new features will be added. Be sure to check for updates.