"Beau Webber" wrote in message
om...
It has been worying me for some time that there appear to be
no identical red/green/blue filters for the left and right cameras -
how does one get full colour stereo pictures - perhaps interpolation
or perhaps it is approximate ?

anyone know ?

"Three of the filters on the left Pancams were chosen to sample wavelengths
close to the R, G, and B response of the human photopic function, so that
true color images could be generated of the martian surface scenery using
methods similar to those outlined by Maki et al. (1999). The left plus right
pairs of red and blue filters also provide multispectral stereo imaging
capability, with the red pair optimized for stereo imaging of high contrast
Mars scenes, and the blue pair providing an alternative method at a
wavelength where topography is hypothesized to provide a larger source of
scene contrast variations (e.g., Kirk et al., 1999)."

"Two filters, near 440 and 750 nm, are redundant in the left and right
Pancams. This provides stereo imaging capability in two colors, as well as
redundancy for generating pseudo-true color images in the right Pancam, in
the event of a left Pancam failure."

Table 4. Pancam Filter Characteristics

Name

?eff (nm)

Bandpass (nm)

Left Camera

L1 719 179 EMPTY

L2 753 20 Red Stereo L

L3 673 16 Geology

L4 602 17 Geology

L5 535 19 Geology

L6 483 27 Geology

L7 440 25 Blue Stereo L

L8 440 20 Solar ND5

Right Camera

R1 440 25 Blue Stereo R

R2 754 19 Red Stereo R

R3 803 20 Geology

R4 864 17 Geology

R5 903 25 Geology

R6 933 24 Geology

R7 1001 28 Geology

R8 880 20 Solar ND5

Everything you ever wanted to know about the pancam:

http://europa.la.asu.edu:8585/PGG/gr.../bell_2003.pdf

Joe