This synthetic image of NASA's Opportunity Mars Exploration Rover
inside Endurance Crater was produced using "Virtual Presence in
Space" technology. Developed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
Pasadena, Calif., this technology combines visualization and image
processing tools with Hollywood-style special effects. The image was
created using a photorealistic model of the rover and an approximately
full-color mosaic. The size of the rover in the image is approximately
correct and was based on the size of the rover tracks in the mosaic.
Because this synthesis provides viewers with a sense of their own
"virtual presence" (as if they were there themselves), such views can
be useful to mission teams by enhancing perspective and a sense of scale.
Opportunity captured the underlying view of "Burns Cliff" after driving
right to the base of this southeastern portion of the inner wall of
"Endurance Crater." The view combines frames taken by Opportunity's
panoramic camera between the rover's 287th and 294th martian days
(Nov. 13 to 20, 2004).
This is a composite of 46 different images, each acquired in seven
different Pancam filters. It is an approximately true-color rendering
generated from the panoramic camera's 750-nanometer, 530-nanometer
and 430-nanometer filters. The mosaic spans more than 180 degrees
side to side. Because of this wide-angle view, the cliff walls appear to
bulge out toward the camera. In reality the walls form a gently curving,
continuous surface. See PIA07110.