Kerbin Exography Society

[wanderingjew]

Welcome to the Kerbin Exography Society!

I realize this is a bit presumptuous for a first post, but I'd like to propose the creation of a Kerbin Exography Society; an informal group of volunteers dedicated to mapping the moons of Kerbin (and when 0.17 is released, the rest of the Kerbol system).

I've already done a bit of really cool things with the ISA RAM mapper, such as turning a height map of the mun into a 3D object (I also did minimus and wrote this Hackaday post). With 0.17 coming up, and still no sign of an organized system of collecting exographic data, it only makes sense to form some sort of collective of planetary cartographers to map the Kerbol system.

I am aware that there is a Kerbin Geographic and Science Society , but the aim of that seems to be the naming of geographic features. The aim of the Kerbin Exographic Society isn't to name geographic features, only to record them.

What we need:

We need a few brave souls to make the perilous journey to the mun and minimus for mapping expeditions, with a craft outfitted with the ISA RAM mapper. Unfortunately, the task of completely mapping the entirety of a globe at the resolution provided by the ISA RAM mapper would require several dozen gigabytes of data to be collected but it is still an achievable goal

Using camera mods to take low altitude photographs of munar and minimal features - at different angles and lighting positions - will allow the Kerbin Exography Society to construct textures to lay over the height maps generated from the ISA RAM mapper

A system or administrators to collect and compile this data into digestible formats

And the development of mods to make collecting this data easier

I know it's a lot to ask for, but from other kerbalnauts I've talked to there seems to be a lot of interest in mapping and photographing planetary bodies in the Kerbol system. I'm open to any suggestions on how to make this happen, hopefully before 0.17 so all the bugs can be worked out.

[TheCardinal]

Frankly, i'm having mixed feelings about your suggestion. I disagree with you that the aim of the KGSS is naming geographic features. It is just one of the things the KGSS does. It also collects exographic data. (One of the posts in the KGSS f.i. has an attachment with over 1Gb of data).

On the other hand creating a detailed map of the planetary bodies with photographs is something i would like to be done. (how and at what resolution etc. is beyond me).

My suggestion is to combine your efforts with those of the KGSS (make it a sub-departement of the KGSS?), talk to the creator of the KGSS about how and what and what structure would be the most afvantageous to all. It will at least prevent doing some things twice. (Sorry if i rained on your parade)

[Sixteenbit]

Over on Reddit, I posted a nearly-complete 1600x800 version of my munar map, but have since been able to nearly complete that resolution and continue to 2400, then 3600. I love this idea. I tried to read through the KGSS thread, but it's quite long and seems to have fizzled a bit. I was also unable to find high or ultra-high resolutions of the maps in that thread. I would be interested in an ongoing project to increase the resolution of the maps available and come up with a sort of atlas with something like this. As well, it's not as if there aren't multiple agencies here on Earth to record geographical and topographical features in competition with each other. I don't see the harm in having two, especially if we aren't interested in naming or RP. Each of my mapping satellites bristles with hull cameras as well. Photos shouldn't be too hard.

Here are my results so far: http://imgur.com/a/79X0Q#0

I will be continuing my scans until I have a pixel perfect map at a resolution of 3600x1800. Unfortunately, polar outputs get messy when you try to bump the resolution up (they overlap), so this is what we get until that's fixed. On my overclocked 1100T, (6 cores, not 8 -- I was mistaken), the maps take about 3 minutes to generate, but this increases by about a minute per day of scans and we're looking at another 4 days for the 3600. The merged csv is well over a gig at this point.

So tl;dr, I completely support this and would be willing to continue my mapping missions until we have 3600x1800 or higher resolution maps of the worlds of KSP.

[Tim_Barrett]

Are you guys going to race to get cartographic images of the new bodies or something?

[Sixteenbit]

Are you guys going to race to get cartographic images of the new bodies or something?

Sure? I'm not sure it's really a competition though. We all know how .17 is going to go down. Day one, the forum will be flooded with new map posts of all the different worlds. I think the point here is to go for really high res maps and images of interesting features. I'm not sure we care about being first.

[wanderingjew]

I'm open to any suggestions on exactly how to combine data from multiple people/probes

I've been tinkering around with a bit of Python to combine data from multiple ISA RAM mapper .csv files, but getting rid of all the duplicates is an extremely computationally heavy task.

The mapper has a resolution of 1 second, so 360 degrees * 60 minutes * 60 seconds equals about 2.4 MB for each meridian line. That means a full-resolution map is about 3.4 TERABYTES of elevation data, using 2 bytes for each point of elevation data. Keep in mind that's only for one planetary body. I'm open to any and all suggestions as to the best way to map this.

[ramipro]

Hey guys!

Just wanted to show you what I've done with not much time and a few photoshop tricks (actually GIMP, but who cares haha)

Well, here it is

(Right click, open in a new tab, to see it full res)

Edited August 17, 2012 by ramipro

[togfox]

The kgss maps were formed formed by collating community provided csv files and the maps then made public as that is what the society promotes. Credit to contributers posted where possible. There are millions of datapoints in the kgss csv's. If the maps are low res, you simply have to find a map program that can handle the full data set, and a pc that can crunch them and draw the maps any res you like. The kgss also has a monthly journal to keep space fans thinking and pushing the boundary. We also dont do . We do science.

Check out the first post in the link in my sig. If you want to set up similar then be my guest and have fun with it. If you have something to offerr the kgss then shoot me a pm.

[Sixteenbit]

As far as combining the csv files, I've been merging the raw data, duplicates and all, but only one merge has taken place -- the initial 10x scans at [email protected] degrees inclination. Since then, I've had my machine scanning at [email protected] degrees. I've been able to clean up the map pretty well over the course of a few days.

I think it would be cool to have a continually updated Google Earth model of each world, complete with POI data and pictures taken, with accurate lat/long data. I think KGSS and KES could actually work together to make the Kerbol system a very attractive, well mapped and photographed place to explore.

[Bluejayek]

I see your request for a measly few gigabyte picture, and raise you this 150 gigapixel picture of the milky way. http://djer.roe.ac.uk/vsa/vvv/iipmooviewer-2.0-beta/vvvgps5.html

Edited August 16, 2012 by Bluejayek

[TheBlaster]

As far as combining the csv files, I've been merging the raw data, duplicates and all, but only one merge has taken place -- the initial 10x scans at [email protected] degrees inclination. Since then, I've had my machine scanning at [email protected] degrees. I've been able to clean up the map pretty well over the course of a few days.

I think it would be cool to have a continually updated Google Earth model of each world, complete with POI data and pictures taken, with accurate lat/long data. I think KGSS and KES could actually work together to make the Kerbol system a very attractive, well mapped and photographed place to explore.

Im totally down for this. Sounds awesome.

[Sixteenbit]

Here's this morning's version of the 3600. It's nowhere near pixel-perfect, but the 2400 is pretty clear with a few errors I'm clearing up. Imgur capped the image at 2448x1224, so the gaps seem a little more exaggerated and jpeg compression is really showing its flaws here. It's in the spoiler here, but if you view image on it, you'll get a better view.

[Sixteenbit]

If anyone is still interested in this, I've now nearly completed the 4800 resolution map of the Mun.

[Martonaut]

I think he also wants to do something like this http://www.moon-map.com/

[Sixteenbit]

Work continues. I'm running 2 KSP's at a time now. Shooting for 4600px of each body.

http://imgur.com/a/oUXLw