Creating HiRISE digital elevation models for Mars using the open-source Ames Stereo Pipeline

Adam J. Hepburn, Tom Holt, Bryn Hubbard, Felix Ng
2019 Geoscientific Instrumentation Methods and Data Systems Discussions  
<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> The present availability of sub-decametre digital elevation models on Mars &amp;ndash; crucial for the study of surface processes &amp;ndash; is scarce. In contrast to the globally-available but low-resolution datasets, such models enable the study of landforms <&amp;thinsp;10&amp;thinsp;km in size, which is the primary scale at which geomorphic processes have been active on Mars over the last 10&amp;ndash;20&amp;thinsp;Ma. Stereogrammetry is a means of producing
more » ... gital elevation models from stereo pairs of images. The HiRISE camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has captured >&amp;thinsp;3000 stereo pairs at 25&amp;thinsp;cm/pixel resolution, enabling the creation of high-resolution digital elevation models (1&amp;ndash;2&amp;thinsp;m/pixel). However, only ~&amp;thinsp;500 of these pairs have been processed and made publicly available to date. Existing pipelines for the production of digital elevation models from stereo-pairs, however, are built upon commercial software, rely upon sparsely-available intermediate data, or are reliant on proprietary algorithms. Here, we present and test the output of a new pipeline for producing digital elevation models from HiRISE stereo pairs that is built entirely upon the open source NASA Ames Stereo Pipeline photogrammetric software, making use of freely available data for cartographic rectification. This pipeline is implemented here on a research computing cluster, but can also be used on consumer-grade UNIX computers. The four output digital elevation models produced using the pipeline presented here are globally well-registered, with accuracy similar to those of multiple digital elevation models produced elsewhere.</p>
doi:10.5194/gi-2019-11 fatcat:ioxzepyy6ndjzmswpetlvpkfme