Seamless 3D Image Mapping and Mosaicing of Valles Marineris on Mars Using Orbital HRSC Stereo and Panchromatic Images

Abstract

A seamless mosaic has been constructed including a 3D terrain model at 50 m grid-spacing and a corresponding terrain-corrected orthoimage at 12.5 m using a novel approach applied to ESA Mars Express High Resolution Stereo Camera orbital (HRSC) images of Mars. This method consists of blending and harmonising 3D models and normalising reflectance to a global albedo map. Eleven HRSC image sets were processed to Digital Terrain Models (DTM) based on an opensource stereo photogrammetric package called CASP-GO and merged with 71 published DTMs from the HRSC team. In order to achieve high quality and complete DTM coverage, a new method was developed to combine data derived from different stereo matching approaches to achieve a uniform outcome. This new approach was developed for high-accuracy data fusion of different DTMs at dissimilar grid-spacing and provenance which employs joint 3D and image co-registration, and B-spline fitting against the global Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) standard reference. Each HRSC strip is normalised against a global albedo map to ensure that the very different lighting conditions could be corrected and resulting in a tiled set of seamless mosaics. The final 3D terrain model is compared against the MOLA height reference and the results shown of this intercomparison both in altitude and planum. Visualisation and access mechanisms to the final open access products are described.