Last month*we wrote about the first topographic map of Mercury –*the closest planet to our sun located*48 million miles (77 million km) away from Earth. The map was based on images taken by NASA’s MESSENGER – the spacecraft that launched toward Mercury in 2004 and began orbiting the planet in 2011. Last year it ended its four-year long mission after flying around Mercury*4100 times and capturing 300k images that were released for a free reuse to the public.
A Czech company called Melown decided use this opportunity and to test their 3D visualisation platform. They’ve taken 100k images of the planet to create their Google Earth-like model of Mercury. The effect is totally awesome and the engine works really well! Take a look.
“When NASA / JHUAPL released the first ever digital elevation data of Mercury based on the MESSENGER mission a couple of weeks ago, we saw it as an opportunity to do a lightweight case study with extra-terrestrial data.*Unlike some other geospatial systems, Melown has been designed to model any planet (and any object for that matter) but we never put that ability to practical test”,*Ond
A Czech company called Melown decided use this opportunity and to test their 3D visualisation platform. They’ve taken 100k images of the planet to create their Google Earth-like model of Mercury. The effect is totally awesome and the engine works really well! Take a look.