Solar Atlas is a first person perspective of an accurate 3D simulation of Mars. This is a great way for NASA to plan missions and discover useful terrain for projects. Solar Atlas also contains the architecture to explore other celestial bodies given their altimeter data. This could also be used in educating students about the true surface of planets and planetoids
Mars Trek MOLA data images were turned into heights using the legend provided. White and lighter points were high points on the surface, whereas dark areas represented craters and the shallowest parts of the planet. We obtained the data for the highest peak of Mars to estimate the height of each appropriate pixel and used Unity's terrain engine to build the surface. As terrain is needed, Solar Atlas requests images from the Trek API to simulate the terrain.
Our Mars demo was run on a reduced scale and features the built code in the github repository. The user is dropped into one of the craters found on Mars to explore. Also, gravity, scale, and several other settings can be adjusted in Unity3D and Visual Studio.
- Mars terrain using Trek API altimeter data
- User friendly interface
- Realistic surface
- Adjustable scale
- Instant travel map
- Open source and non-proprietary
- NASA Trek API
- Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter
- Vesta High Altitude Mapping Orbit
- Unity 3d
- C#
- github
- javascript
Created for NASA Space Apps Challenge 2016. At PeopleSpace, Irvine, CA.