Viewpoint provides Mars rover science teams with 3D planning tools for rover operations.  It was used on the Opportunity rover to support Pancam and Navcam observations, is currently used on the Curiosity rover for Mastcam, and is in development to support Mastcam-Z on the upcoming Mars 2020 rover.  It gives science team members visualization of the rover's position in context with its surroundings, robotic arm instrument target selection tools, and rover mobility simulations.  It uses emulated mast kinematics and camera models for accurate camera pointing in any coordinate frame.  Planning can be done collaboratively:  multiple users can log into the same planning sol, see what others are doing, and communicate via chat. 

What it can do

Primary Functionality

  • Display terrain meshes, as well as 2D images projected into a 3D environment
  • View of the scene from orbit, the ground, or from the camera's perspective
  • Models lighting, Sun position, and shadowing based on time of day
  • Automatic imagery loading for most up-to-date view, or Manual imagery loading to browse data from previous locations
  • Feature selection tools:
    • Targeting
    • Arm instrument footprint and placement modeling
    • Feature measurement tools
    • Model lighting on any point in the scene
  • Playback rover motion simulations
  • Virtually drive the rover anywhere in the scene to assess camera perspectives
  • Localize the rover's position in previous data to correct for error in the rover's position knowledge
  • Multi-user collaborative pointing design
  • Drag-and-drop mosaic building with snapped overlap, or automated mosaic building
  • Activity Plan comparison with resource checking, delivery, and report generation

ITAR compliancy

  • The only information and data products available to the Viewpoint client application, are those that are, will, or could be PDS archived. 
  • The Viewpoint client application contains no code for writing commands.