Titan's Environment
3-D Artistic Rendering
We used an image of Titan's surface taken by the DISR instrument ("Descent Imager and Spectral Radiometer", University of Arizona, USA) aboard the Huygens probe (ESA/ASI/NASA).
The grayscale, unprocessed image was published in the ESA and NASA web sites on January 14, 2005. It was taken by Huygens at an altitude of 16.2 km in the Titan's atmosphere and it is characterized by a spatial resolution of 40 meters, i.e., the finest detail in the image has such a size. A preliminary analysis seems to indicate the presence of a fluid drainage network in the left part of the image and a shoreline in the right part.
Waiting for proves and/or disproves from the Huygens' data, we adopted some working assumptions based on the physical conditions expected on this moon (dense atmosphere, haze, very low temperature, ice, fluid rivers and oceans), and we generated an artistic (i.e., non-scientific) 3-D rendering of the Titan's environment for purely divulgative aims.
The steps which led to the final rendering movie are respectively:
Processing of the original image to emphasize the details and improve the contrast.
Association of each gray level in the image with an elevation value.
Generation of a 3-D map by constructing a set of triangular surfaces which connect adjacent elevation points to simulate the terrain.
Definition of the rendering parameters (fractal detail complexity, palette, ice elevation level, fluid elevation level, lighting characteristics).
Definition of a path for the imaging camera inside the virtual 3-D space (elevation and pointing direction, speed and movement mode along the path).
Generation of the movie by renderization of a series of frames, each of them representing the virtual 3-D space as observed by subsequent positions of the imaging camera along the path.
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Watch the movie :
Windows Media format
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Quicktime format
download plug-in
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Watch the images:
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