Part of the Rover Analysis, Modeling and Simulation (ROAMS) software that synthesizes images of terrain has been augmented to make the images more realistic. [ROAMS was described in "Simulating Operation of a Planetary Rover" (NPO-30722), NASA Tech Briefs, Vol. 28, No. 9 (September 2004), page 52. ROAMS simulates the operation of a robotic vehicle (rover) exploring terrain on a remote planet.] The images are needed for modeling responses of rover cameras that provide sensory inputs for machine-vision-based algorithms for controlling the motion of the rover. The augmented image-synthesizing part of the ROAMS software supports terrain geometry and texture specifiable by the user, CAHV and CAHVOR camera models, and more-realistic shadowing (see figure). (The letters in "CAHV" represent vectors in a standard photogrammetric model of a pinhole camera. Letters O and R in "CAHVOR" represent vectors used to model distortions.) A contemplated future version of ROAMS would support the CAHVORE model, which represents more-general cameras, including those having fish-eye or other wide-field-of-view lenses. (Letter E in "CAHVORE" represents a vector used to model apparent motion of a camera entrance pupil.)

Examples of Shadowing show terrain and rovershadows. Pixels that do not have direct line-ofsight to the Sun are darkened.

This program was written by Richard Madison, Abhinandan Jain, and Marc Pomerantz of Caltech for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. For further information, access the Technical Support Package (TSP) free on-line at www.techbriefs.com/tsp under the Software category.

This software is available for commercial licensing. Please contact Karina Edmonds of the California Institute of Technology at (626) 395-2322. Refer to NPO-42406.



This Brief includes a Technical Support Package (TSP).
Document cover
Generating CAHV and CAHVOR Images With Shadows in ROAMS

(reference NPO-42406) is currently available for download from the TSP library.

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