Topomapping of Mars with HRSC Images, ISIS, and a commercial stereo workstation

We demonstrate that the freely available USGS planetary cartography software package ISIS and the commercial photogrammetric software SOCET SET jointly provide a complete environment for the processing of Mars Express High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) images. Capabilities include bundle adjustment, automated production and interactive editing of stereo digital terrain models (DTMs), orthomosaic production, photometric modeling and normalization, and DTM refinement by photoclinometry/shapefrom-shading. The generation of DTMs and other products for two test areas on Mars is described; a companion paper by Heipke et al. (2006) compares DTMs produced from these test datasets by multiple investigators using alternate approaches. SOCET SET capabilities relevant to multi-line scanners (including HRSC) are evolving, and improved performance in several areas can be expected in the near future. ISIS by itself provides useful capabilities for orthomosaic production with pre-existing DTMs, photometry, and photoclinometry, and the value of these free tools will be increased once an HRSC bundle-adjustment capability is implemented.