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The two Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, have a large
complement of cameras. All cameras can take stereo pictures,
in which an image is taken with a left camera and a right
camera. The rovers have three sets of camera systems, each with
different uses and capabilities.
- Panoramic Cameras (pancams):
The left and right
cameras are separated by 30 cm and each one has 8 color filters, which
can be used to create color images (see Color Image Processing section).
This is the primary science camera and is responsible for all color
images from the mission.
- Navigational Cameras (navcams):
The
navigational cameras are used for science and by operators on Earth to
use the images to drive the rovers to the desired scientific sites.
- Hazard Avoidance Cameras (hazcams):
Two sets (front
and rear) of hazcams provide stereo images through fish-eye lenses.
Fish eye lenses create distinctive curvature in the output images.
In all cases, when the rover has acquired both a right and left-eye
image, we can combine the images in a manner similar to the way the
human brain continuously combines the images from our left and right
eyes to perceive depth. You can see this effect yourself, when you
hold your finger up close to your face and alternately open just one
eye. Your finger appears to move against the background you see from
the rest of the room. Your brain knows that the larger difference
between objects in a view from your left and right eyes is due to the
fact that the object is closer.
The challenge is to both acquire a left and right eye view of
the scene and moreover to display the resulting stereo images
in a way that your left eye only sees the left image (taken with the
left camera) and the right eye only sees the right image. In our
case, we use inexpensive Geowall technology (see Geowall Consortium section).
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