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MARSWEB: A GIS based web 2.0 mapping application to measure impact craters on the surface of Mars

September 2010

Authors:

J.-P. Muller

University College London

Jeremy G Morley

Ordnance Survey

MarsWeb Architecture

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Upper Panel: measured craters in red superimposed on a hill-shaded and colourised MOLA DTM. Middle panel: layers can be cascaded and combined using transparency (opacity) alpha layer. Lower Panel: Crater height Profiles.

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Figures - uploaded by Jeremy G Morley

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Content uploaded by Jeremy G Morley

Content may be subject to copyright.

MARSWEB: A GIS based web 2.0 mapping application to

measure impact craters on the surface of Mars.

C. Vargas (1), J.-P. Muller (2) and J.G. Morley (3)

(1) Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College London, UK, (2) Mullard Space Science Laboratory, University

College London, UK, (3) Centre for Geospatial Science, University of Nottingham, UK

(camilo.ruiz@ucl.ac.uk, jpm@mssl.ucl.ac.uk, jeremy.morley@nottingham.ac.uk)

Abstract

A open source web-based mapping application has

been developed to allow both professional and

amateur geologists to participate in a large-scale

project to map craters on extra-terrestrial bodies,

starting with the planet Mars. The context is the

dating of the surface of Mars which can be retrieved

using crater size frequency distributions (Kim et al.,

2005) or crater 3D shape (Kim and Muller, 2009)

using Web 2.0. This is based on sharing information

dynamically and interactively over the Internet, and

has a huge potential in the search for the best answer.

We describe the development of a GIS-based Web

2.0 rich internet mapping application, MarsWeb

(http://marsweb.net) to identify and measure the

shape of impact craters of Mars interactively. The

system provides a generic framework for users, both

professional and amateur, to engage actively in

mapping Mars by creating, sharing, aggregating and

using crater information in a variety of formats that

work in traditional GIS and planetary software.

1. Introduction

Due to the increasing use of web technologies and

the availability of OGC compliant web mapping

services, web based mapping applications are

becoming popular tools to generate knowledge in

online communities. Internet users can contribute

cartographic content and easily create, modify, and

share geographic information.

This opportunity offers the scientific community new

ways to collaborate with each other and share their

research results, opening up the possibility as well as

for amateur users to be engaged in planetary mapping

efforts.

We first describe the general Mars Web multi-layered

architecture used to provide the foundation to

develop MarsWeb. The second section presents the

key features of the application. In the final section we

present an analysis of the results obtained and

summarise the key conclusions of this work.

2. MarsWeb Architecture

The open source MarsWeb architecture follows a

generic interactive web mapping application.

Underlying the application is a relational database for

metadata and pointers to data, some application logic

in the middle, and a user interface layer at the top.

The database is implemented in PostgreSQL/PostGIS

with a file-based storage system (MSSL Image Group

Server) at the bottom, a logic application written in

J2EE for Enterprise Applications in the middle, and a

user interface layer implemented using ExtJS plus

Openlayers at the top. Figure 1 shows the MarsWeb

system architecture, which makes use of a set of open

source components, each fulfilling a particular

functional role. Measurements can be exported into

shapefiles, readable by most standalone GIS systems

as well as the Freie Universität Berlin isochron crater

Size Frequency Distribution plotting system (Michael

& Neukum, 2009). The University of Minnesota Map

Server (UMMS) provides the map serving for WMS

(Web Map Service PNG files) and WCS (geotiff

raster data).

3. MarsWeb Application

Taking advantage of OGC standards-oriented

architecture, the system is able to access layers from

distributed map services, including cascaded WMS

services from colleagues such as the onmars server at

JPL (JPL onmars), the PIGWAD system at USGS

(Hare & Tanaka, 2001) or the J-MARS system at

ASU (Viviano and Moersch, 2010).

EPSC Abstracts

Vol. 5, EPSC2010-881, 2010

European Planetary Science Congress 2010

 Author(s) 2010

Figure 1: MarsWeb Architecture

MarsWeb allows the creation of fused views from in-

house and cascaded WMS services in order to be able

to create new views of the maps by using WMS layer

transparency. Users can draw simple impact crater

boundaries with minimal manual input or can import

previously measured craters from shapefile or text

files; they also can indicate characteristics of each

crater via the generation of tags. After creating their

own crater catalogues, users can share these crater

measurements with colleagues or the entire online

community. Finally the system provides two basic

crater analysis functionalities: Plot Crater Profiles

and Plot Crater Count Size-Frequency Distribution.

Several screenshots are presented in Figure 2.

4. Conclusions

There is an increasing need to communicate both to

scientistific colleagues who are involved in Mars

science, or others who would like to get involved,

regarding mapping results. The Mars science

community needs to increase its multi-disciplinary

approach to Mars science, by increasing the ability to

pull in scientists who are not Mars specialists.

In this context, Mars, MarsWeb has been developed

as a Rich Internet Mapping Application to allow both

professional and amateur geologists to participate in

a large-scale web-GIS project to map craters on

extra-terrestrial bodies, starting with the planet Mars.

This combination of tools and frameworks enables

the integration of sophisticated cartography, robust

map services, and new geographic information

visualization techniques in the continuously changing

Internet environment, for the purpose of mapping

craters of Mars.

Figure 2: Upper Panel: measured craters in red

superimposed on a hill-shaded and colourised MOLA

DTM. Middle panel: layers can be cascaded and

combined using transparency (opacity) alpha layer.

Lower Panel: Crater height Profiles.

Acknowledgements

Funding from STFC (PP/ E002366/1) is gratefully

acknowledged.

References

Hare, T., Tanaka, K.L., 2001. Planetary interactive GIS-on-

the-web analyzable database (PIGWAD). The 20th

International Cartographic Conference, Beijing,

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JPL Onmars WMS server at http://onmars.jpl.nasa.gov/

Kim, J. R., Muller, J-P., Morley, J.G. et al. (2005).

"Automated crater detection, a new tool for Mars

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Engineering And Remote Sensing 71(10): 1205-1217

Kim, J.-R. and J.-P. Muller, 2009: Multi-resolution

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Viviano, C. and J. Moersch, 2010: Using JMARS as a

Teaching Tool in Undergraduate Planetary Courses. 41st

Lunar and Planetary Science Conference. see

http://jmars.asu.edu/

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Modern planetary maps are designed either as stand-alone products or as part of a map series and are commonly distributed in the Portable Document Format (pdf). With the advent of web-based map technology and its standardization, experimental steps towards digital-only and dynamic map display for planetary cartography have been made. Commonly, maps design and concepts were limited to the arrangement (stacking) of various data layers while any deeper cartographic concepts or questions about usability seemed to be of secondary importance. We here present a new cartographic approach of creating a web basemap for Mars by refining and integrating commonly available data and by building on a cartographic concept. The underlying concepts we elaborated upon are, however, valid for any other planetary body and are applicable in the same or at least very similar way to any other solar system body. With this approach we want to demonstrate that for the creation of web maps in the planetary sciences the cartographic process does not stop at the collection and literal stacking of data, but that dynamic planetary maps can have a considerably higher communication value through concepts and design. As much as web maps are dynamic, so are concepts and new developments, and we tried to implement a web basemap reflecting the common understanding and picture that laymen as well as professionals might have about Mars.

Towards a new face for Planetary Maps: Design and web-based Implementation of Planetary Basemaps

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Automated Crater Detection, A New Tool for Mars Cartography and Chronology

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Oct 2005
PHOTOGRAMM ENG REM S

An automated crater detection algorithm is presented which exploits image data. The algorithm is briefly described and its application demonstrated on a variety of different Martian geomorphological areas and sensors (Viking Orbiter Camera, Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC), Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA), and High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC)). We show assessment results through both an inter-comparison of automated crater locations with those from the manually-derived Mars Crater Consortium (MCC) catalogue and the manually-derived craters. The detection algorithm attains an accuracy of 70 to 90 percent and a quality factor of 60 to 80 percent depending on target sensor type and geomorphology. We also present crater detection results derived from HRSC images onboard the ESA Mars Express on a comparison between manually-determined Size-Frequency Distributions (SFDs) and those derived fully automatically. The approach described appears to offer great potential for chronological research, geomatic and geological analysis and for other purposes of extra-terrestrial planetary surface mapping.

Planetary Interactive GIS-on-the-Web Analyzable Database (PIGWAD)

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Apr 2004

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) in Flagstaff, Arizona is producing a Web-based, user-friendly interface that integrates powerful Geographic Information Systems (GIS) statistical and spatial relational tools for analyses of planetary datasets. The interface, known as "Planetary Interactive GIS-on-the-Web Analyzable Database" (PIGWAD), provides database support for the research and academic planetary science communities, particularly for geologic mapping and other surface-related investigations.

Multi-resolution topographic data extraction from Martian stereo imagery

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Dec 2009
PLANET SPACE SCI

The acquisition of high resolution topographic data such as Digital Terrain Models (DTMs) and orthoimages from various Martian stereo imagery is now readily available. The very successful European Space Agency (ESA) Mars Express mission includes the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) which has provided, since March 2004, an increasingly global set of along-track stereo coverage at relatively high spatial resolution (<100 m, mainly 12.5–25 m) over the Martian surface. Previous DTM generation was only accomplished with planned or serendipitous Viking Orbiter and more recently from Mars Orbiter Camera Narrow Angle (MOC-NA) stereo-pairs. Neither system was designed for stereo photogrammetric DTM generation. Recently, the NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) deployed two major optical pushbroom CCD cameras which are capable of across-track stereo targeting. Both Context Camera (CTX) and High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) provide very high resolution stereo imagery at 6 m and submetre, respectively. A stereo processing chain has been developed which uses a non-rigorous sensor model with geodetic control derived from a reference stereo data source (HRSC) and is here shown to be successfully applied to CTX and HiRISE stereo imagery for 3 test areas. This processing chain is here demonstrated to generate excellent quality DTMs (up to a maximum grid spacing of 0.7 m with HiRISE and 10 m with CTX) and associated ortho images. The photogrammetric quality of these products is here verified using inter-comparisons with HRSC and Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) data sets and shows good agreement.

Using JMARS as a Teaching Tool in Undergraduate Planetary Courses

Article

Mar 2010

We have utilized the JMARS program in the laboratory portion of the planetary geosciences course at the University of Tennessee. We review several ways we have applied JMARS tools, including a crater counting and a rover geologic traverse project.

Planetary interactive GIS-onthe-web analyzable database (PIGWAD) The 20th International Cartographic Conference

Jan 2001

T Hare
K L Tanaka

Hare, T., Tanaka, K.L., 2001. Planetary interactive GIS-onthe-web analyzable database (PIGWAD). The 20th International Cartographic Conference, Beijing, China. http://webgis.wr.usgs.gov/