Color Images from Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover

Images by Sol

Color images created by processing raw images taken by the Ingenuity Helicopter RTE Camera, and Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover Left and Right NavCams, Front and rear HazCam pairs and Watson Camera are offered here. Mastcam-Z images will be added later.

On desktop browsers use keys ↑ ↓ ← → ↵ (Enter) for fast browsing through the album pages.

On mobiles swipe left, right and up for navigation through the album pages.

Use the list on the left to access the images. It is sorted by the Martian day (Sol) since landing, the 2nd entry shows the available color images for each Sol.

Changelog

2021-08-07

Ingenuity Helicopter RTE Images added with preliminary camera profile.

2021-07-04

Larger preview images on mobile devices.

2021-04-21

Watson camera RGB matrix adjusted for whitebalance.

2021-04-04

Hazcams images added, showing the helicopter.

2021-04-03

Watson camera images added, showing the helicopter.

2021-04-02

Scikit-Image intensity enhancement added.

2021-03-31

Improved swipe navigation to enable pinch-zoom.

2021-03-17

Layout updated. Link to original raw image added.

2021-03-14

Improved automatic contrast adjustment.

2021-03-10

Compensated for geometric and luminosity lens effects. Added estimated camera color correction matrix.

2021-03-08

Initial release. Only Navcam images so far processed. Calibration still preliminary, no camera profile applied yet.

Color Calibration

The intention is to approximate the impression a human observer would have when standing on the surface of planet Mars. Though, as of now, the image processing pipeline is not yet completed due to missing camera calibration information. As soon this information becomes available it will be integrated into the processing pipeline.

Currently, the only color processing applied is a static color correcting 3x3 matrix based on calibration results of previous missions' Mars cameras. The color variation visible between individual images is most likely caused by dynamic or static effects of the image sensor, for example static channel-based nonlinear gain effects or dynamic sensor read-out effects.

Comparing images from the 1976 Viking Landers, 1997 Mars Pathfinder, 2004 Rovers Spirit and Opportunity and the 2012 Curiosity Rover revealed similar light conditions on the Martian surface as on a clear sky day on Earth. Just the total light intensite is lower, about 60% of Earth's. Technically it means, there is a close match between the relative calibration method, based on the Rover-attached color targets and the absolute calibration method based on the pre-flight camera spectral response measured under standard daylight illumination on Earth. Images taken during a clear day on Mars with the calibration applied on this website not only show the color perception a human on the planet would see by themselves, but also the colors a geologist on Earth would see when observing a Martian rock sample brought back to Earth and viewed during noon under a clear blue sky on Earth.

During dust storm season, the relative and absolute calibrations don't match, but these conditions usually occur only for a few weeks per Martian year. They are characterized by diffuse reddish ambient illumination compared to the sharp and defined shadows during clear sky days.

Image Processing

The images are automatically created daily from raw data available at Mars Perseverance Raw Image Gallery.

Processing pipeline:

• Debayer the NLE and NRE images. The NLF and NRF images are already debayered.
• Linearize by decompanding via the inverted 11-to-8 bit lookup table, LUT 0, squareroot. Though the AD DC_OFFSET value is missing. For RTE images the standard sRGB table is used.
• Compensate radial gain variation. (Nav/Haz only)
• Compensate horizontal sensor read out intensity decay. (Nav/Haz only)
• Apply flatfield calibration image (Heli flatfield only)
• Compensate wide angle distortion on large images (Nav/Heli only)
• Apply preliminary camera profile static color correction matrix.
• Apply preliminary camera profile static RGB shaper curves (Heli only)
• Increase contrast by applying non-linear intensity function
• Apply sRGB compression ("gamma")
• Not yet enabled: Apply camera profile for a D50 standard illuminant, an ICC file created by ArgyllCMS or DCamProf.

The creation of the camera profile would be following the process as presented at the 2017 International Mars Society Convention. The presentation describes the creation of a camera profile for the 1976 Viking Lander digital scanning cameras and the 2012 Curiosity Rover MAHLI camera. Slides: http://www.marspapers.org/paper/Isenberg_2017_pres.pdf

The Ambigram Logo

The Ambigram Logo shown above on top of this page and the variant on areo.info were invented and created in December 2012 through January 2013 by Holger Isenberg. Published and © 2013 Holger Isenberg. If you like to use it, contact me. Have you found the 2 hidden words in it?

Related Resources

• Technical discussion on reddit.com about the image processing pipeline used here
• Discussion on discord.com, channel #tech-and-coding
• Isenberg2017: Practical Color Calibration for Mars Surface Images
  (comparing Viking Lander and MSL MAHLI images, presentation at the 2017 Mars Society Convention)
• Perseverance raw image processing tools by Kevin M. Gill
• NASA PDS Cartography and Imaging Sciences Node - Mars 2020: raw images and calibration data, new releases every 3 months starting Aug 20, 2021
• NASA PDS Geosciences Node - Mars 2020: science instruments raw data, new releases every 3 months, starting Aug 20, 2021

Cameras Documentation

• Bell2017: The Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover Mastcam instruments: Preflight and in‐flight calibration, validation, and data archiving
• Hayes2021: Pre-Flight Calibration of the Mars 2020 Rover Mastcam Zoom (Mastcam-Z) Multispectral, Stereoscopic Imager
• Edgett2019: Mars 2020 Perseverance SHERLOC WATSON Camera Pre-delivery Characterization and Calibration Report
• Maki2020: The Mars 2020 Engineering Cameras and Microphone on the Perseverance Rover: A Next-Generation Imaging System for Mars Exploration
• Balaram2018: Mars Helicopter Technology Demonstrator
• Teledyne2020: Technical specifications of the 6 EDL Teledyne FLIR USB cameras (formerly Point Grey)

Perseverance Rover and Ingenuity Helicopter Image Browsers and Visualization Tools

• Mars 2020 Mission Tracker Interactive 3d scenery visualization by Spatial Studies Lab at Rice University. Includes Ingenuity helicopter 3d mapped flight paths.
• Raw image browser and Perseverance Rover 3d viewer by Ryan
• AreoBrowser raw image browser and general Mars terrain viewer. Also Curiosity raw images.

Other Mars Missions Image Browsers and Visualization Tools

• Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit & Opportunity Color Images
• Viking Lander 1 and Viking Lander 2 raw color Images
• Mars Pathfinder Lander raw color images
• PDS raw image viewer (PDS4, Python)
• Marslife.org 3d interactive map with photo location information over all Sols of Perseverance, Curiosity, MER Opportunity and MER Spirit

Author and Publisher

All Mars images derived from original data published by NASA and JPL on Mars Perseverance Raw Image Gallery.

Image processing framework by Holger Isenberg ([email protected]) using Python, NumPy, scikit-image, OpenCV-Python, fetch_m20_raw.py, Perl, ImageMagick, and Album.
Impressum on main page: areo.info