Mars Visualization in Java3D: Planet Tour

This video contains a quick tour of the planet Mars from a distance. Several key features are focused upon, including Valles Marineris, Olympus Mons, and the North Pole. Topographical data (MOLA) and image textures (MDIM2) were obtained from NASA. Please note the lighting is ambient (nondirectional) to eliminate the planet's dark side and better show of all of Mars's features. This video was produced with software that started as part of an independent study project I did at Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa. Thanks for watching (and check out some of my other Mars movies if you would like)! Any comments or questions are welcome!

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• mars
• visualization
• 3D
• stereoscopic
• virtual
• reality
• mola
• java3d
• space

[WariosWoodsPro]

Have you implemented this with rendering support or without?

[jamesjuett]

I'm sorry, could you please elaborate on your question? I'm not quite sure what you're asking. Thanks!

[WariosWoodsPro]

Does your program use native access (to any OS resource) for rendering your 3D object?

In other words, is your program fully portable to other operating systems like (Unix, Windows, Mac) (without installing any dll's, binaries...)? Usually, you have to install dll's or binaries (depending on the OS) with the Java 3D library for using native rendering.

The reason for my question is, that I have heard that Java 3D is very slow without native 3D rendering.

[jamesjuett]

Ok, thanks for the clarification. The program is fully portable to as long as the target machine has Java3D installed. Java3D makes use of whatever low-level native API (OpenGL, Direct3D) is available, but I didn't have to handle any native stuff on my own. Does this answer your question? Also, you might want to check out some of my other mars visualization videos if you haven't, as they are much closer in to the planet and actually show the landscape. Thanks again!

[specimon]

impressive

[LaPieinsky]

Really great!