This week’s selection is the Mont Mercou on Mars 3D model by Simeon Schmauß of LPG Nantes.
This is a landscape model, but with a difference: it’s a large rocky outcrop that actually exists on the planet Mars in Gale crater.
The data for this 3D model was collected by NASA’s Curiosity rover in 2021. While there isn’t a formal 3D scanner on the rover, this data was generated by leveraging many color images captured by Curiosity’s Mastcam. The photos were sent through a photogrammetry process to develop the 3D model.
After some refinements, we have a 3D model that anyone can download from SketchFab.
While the default dimensions of the 3D model are rather small (30 x 23 x 10 mm), it can easily be expanded to fit your 3D printer. That’s because the resolution on the model is enormous: the 3D model has over one million faces.
That resolution provides detail, but it might slow down your 3D processing a bit in software tools due to the sheer size of the data.
I downloaded and printed the model in an orange material, which was the closest color I had on hand that matched the rusty surface of Mars.
Schmauß is continuing to leverage images from Curiosity and other Mars probes, and apparently is developing a massive 3D environment of Gale Crater itself. Schmauß explains in a Mastodon post:
”I’m currently developing a huge 3D environment of Gale Crater using data from Tianwen-1, CTX, and HiRISE to place my photogrammetry models in their global context. The environment can be viewed in VR, which gives a really good sense of scale and immersion.”
Sure, this is merely a landscape model of some interesting rocks, but there’s magic here: we are replicating a Martian scene on our 3D printer, something that was definitely impossible some years ago.
Via SketchFab
