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Really DUMB question here, I know, but what the heck, I won't learn if I don't ask. What is Vistapro, and how does one use it to generate such striking images? Now, if Vistapro is just a Martian version of a disposable camera and these are simply David's summer vacation snap shots from his last jaunt to Mars, I don't wanna know about it.

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Gee, I *wish* I could take that Martian vacation, but alas, all the warp-driven starships are booked solid . However, to answer your question, Vistapro is a landscape rendering software which generates a 3D representation of what an area would look like when viewed from any location. It is also an outstanding way to blow hours of your time exploring all sorts of places! The program takes topographic data in the form of a Digital Elevation Map (DEM), and then generates the view of the relief with whatever surface coloring (rock color, snow, trees, tree-line, water, etc) and lighting you want (clouds too). The program can also create flight animations through any of the topography you have rendered (takes about eight hours of crunching time on my machine for the really good extended flights). I have done very pretty views of a variety of places on Earth like the Grand Canyon, Crater Lake, Mt. St. Helens, etc., but my real interest is, of course, in the planet Mars. Mars Global Surveyor had a laser altimeter (MOLA) and it generated the data which, in the form of the program MARS EXPLORER Vs. 2.0, allows me to create a DEM file for any area of Mars I want to render. It will also overlay the surface shading and detail from the MGS Atlas of Mars, or I can use my own ideas of how to color things. I can scale the surface relief up or down if I want to accentuate the detail or subdue it, and I can introduce fractalization to "roughen" the surface should I want to do so. I can even generate a totally fictional landscape with mountains, valleys, and plains based on the fractalization, and then add whatever detail I wish to it. However, for my Mars shots, I tend to use only a 3x surface relief exageration (the NASA DEM data comes at 10x exageration), no fractalization, a little distance haze, and sun angles which would be possible on the real Mars for the feature in question. I do like very low sun angles and views towards the sun, as they accentuate the starkness of the landscape, but even some high sun angles can prove interesting. I have explored huge areas on the Martian surface this way, and have over 100 images which I like to show people. My favorite areas are, of course, the canyonlands of Valles Marineris and the large Tharsis volcanoes, but I have done images of the long-range view from Spirit (actually of Maadim Vallis) or the outflow channels and a few of the larger more scenic craters on Mars. Clear skies to you.

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David W. Knisely
Hyde Memorial Observatory
http://www.hydeobservatory.info

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Curious -- is this an area of Mars that is somehow exempt from the wind erosion the rest of the planet is subject to?

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No, in fact there can be significant winds in the Eos Chasma/Chaos area, as small dust storms have been known to pop up there. However, the thin Martian atmosphere has difficulty eroding huge amounts of material, so its mainly a minor sculpting influence rather than a major eroder. Eos Chaos appears to be an area of major collapse due to faulting, along with the release of massive amounts of sub-surface water which undermined the landscape. Major flows extend east and north from Eos into other areas of so-called "Chaotic terrain" and the outflow channels that eventually flow into the Chryse basin. Here below is a short from the horizon of the previous image at the eastern "mouth" of Eos Chasma looking into Aurorae Chaos. Clear skies to you.

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David W. Knisely
Hyde Memorial Observatory
http://www.hydeobservatory.info

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David - I have been looking to do something similar with the moon.
Do you know if I can download the software anywhere or if there is a homepage?

Thanks, and some really stunning images!

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Hi there. Well, I don't know of any sites for Vistapro-compatable lunar DEMs, but I will keep looking. The Mars stuff comes off of the companion software MARS EXPLORER. Clear skies to you.

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David W. Knisely
Hyde Memorial Observatory
http://www.hydeobservatory.info

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That's just incredible. It's like being there.
Do you have a site where one could see more of your images?
- Rick

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No, I should put up a site sometime, but I never seem to get around to it. However, if you like that one, here is another one. It is not long after sunrise in a large canyon system known as Ganges Chasma, located a little north of the main Valles Marineris canyons, but eventually connecting to Capri Chasma on the eastern end.

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David W. Knisely
Hyde Memorial Observatory
http://www.hydeobservatory.info

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Thanks, David. Those are just magnificent.
How do you factor in the haze, distance blurring from atmosphere, etc? Do you wing it, or is there some calculation you use? Either way, it's outstanding.
- Rick

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Vistapro allows you to set the haze to whatever level you want, although quite frankly, I liked the version 3 haze system better than the current one the program is using. I generally set things so that the most distant object in the field has at least some hazyness to it (the Vistapro haze setting number I use is generally from 140 to 200, although for some of the areas where I have simulated early morning ground-fog, I have set it as high as 500). Clear skies to you.

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David W. Knisely
Hyde Memorial Observatory
http://www.hydeobservatory.info

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