Interesting article on Mars Rover cam

[dartworth]

Text

Anyone who has ever agonized over whether to buy a 3-megapixel or 4-megapixel digital camera might be surprised to learn that Spirit's stunningly detailed images of Mars are made with a 1-megapixel model, a palm-sized 9-ounce marvel that would be coveted in any geek's shirt pocket.

 

[cjchaps]

I don't exactly understand what they are getting at. It's a 1 megapixel camera, and they say it's resolution is 1000x1000. You might be able to produce something with better image quality, but you are still limited to that 1000x1000. Why wouldn't they want to make a 5 MP version of it?

 

[shuan24]

Two words: Low Budget

 

[Viper GTS]

Originally posted by: cjchaps
I don't exactly understand what they are getting at. It's a 1 megapixel camera, and they say it's resolution is 1000x1000. You might be able to produce something with better image quality, but you are still limited to that 1000x1000. Why wouldn't they want to make a 5 MP version of it?

Because they can take as many 1 megapixel pics as they want to stitch together a much, much larger picture. They can focus on quality rather than quantity, & get quantity by taking lots & lots of pictures.

Viper GTS

 

[beer]

Originally posted by: shuan24
Two words: Low Budget

More words: Designed back in the 1990s before it was reviewed, then redesigned, then reviewed, then the reviewer's reviewed. They had 3x the budget of the polar lander to make sure it didn't crash into the surface, not to have the latest high tech gizmos on it. Digital cameras have only been at their current level for a couple of years. I'm pretty sure NASA drew up plans after the crash in what was it. 1999?

 

[beer]

Originally posted by: Viper GTS

Originally posted by: cjchaps
I don't exactly understand what they are getting at. It's a 1 megapixel camera, and they say it's resolution is 1000x1000. You might be able to produce something with better image quality, but you are still limited to that 1000x1000. Why wouldn't they want to make a 5 MP version of it?

Because they can take as many 1 megapixel pics as they want to stitch together a much, much larger picture. They can focus on quality rather than quantity, & get quantity by taking lots & lots of pictures.

Viper GTS

Exactly. NASA had the technology, but didn't have a need for anything more.

 

[WinkOsmosis]

Originally posted by: beer

Originally posted by: shuan24
Two words: Low Budget

More words: Designed back in the 1990s before it was reviewed, then redesigned, then reviewed, then the reviewer's reviewed. They had 3x the budget of the polar lander to make sure it didn't crash into the surface, not to have the latest high tech gizmos on it. Digital cameras have only been at their current level for a couple of years. I'm pretty sure NASA drew up plans after the crash in what was it. 1999?

They couldn't update the camera?

Edit: NM. The limit is probably because of the size of the CCD.

 

[vi edit]

Wouldn't it take a lot longer to send a higher res picture too?

 

[Mr.IncrediblyBored]

Originally posted by: vi_edit
Wouldn't it take a lot longer to send a higher res picture too?

I imagine, it would take just as long to send multiple smaller pictures as it would to send a single higher res picture.

 

[Viper GTS]

Originally posted by: vi_edit
Wouldn't it take a lot longer to send a higher res picture too?

The pictures they're sending back certainly aren't 1 mp, they're stitching multiple pictures together.

Viper GTS

 

[vi edit]

Originally posted by: KnightBreed

Originally posted by: vi_edit
Wouldn't it take a lot longer to send a higher res picture too?

I imagine, it would take just as long to send multiple smaller pictures as it would to send a single higher res picture.

I'm completely clueless on how NASA does there transmissions. The idea of being able to transmist stuff that far away still boggles my mind so take my comments with a very large grain of salt

I just didn't know if it would be more reliable/efficient to send a bunch of smaller pictures or a small number of large high res ones.

 

[Bootprint]

It's probably very difficult to make higher density CCD that survive what that camera has to go through. Also as they said a larger CCD has better light capabilities with having to amplify the signal and add noise.


Also are not the pictures all B/W, and they drop a coloured filter in front to get the various colours? So it's a B/W one meg CCD but you need to combine the 3 colour filtered pictures, so it's really like a 3 meg.