Mars Curiosity image of the day: first pic by Navigation cameras includes an augmented reality tag

Engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory today received and published the first photograph shot by the Navigation cameras on NASA's Curiosity rover.

It shows the shadow of the rover's now-upright mast in the center, and the arm's shadow at left. The arm itself can be seen in the foreground. The navigation camera is used to help find the sun -- information that is needed for locating, and communicating, with Earth. After the camera pointed at the sun, it turned in the opposite direction and took this picture. The position of the shadow helps confirm the sun's location. The "augmented reality" or AR tag seen in the foreground can be used in the future with smart phones to obtain more information about the mission.

(via spaceref.com. Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

MORE: curiosity • jpl • Mars • MSL • Science • Space

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http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby

Isn’t that just a low-bit representation of the rover?

[Edit: Stupid commenter (me) didn't read quote]
- http://www.xeni.net/ Xeni Jardin
  
  For avoidance of doubt: JPL identified it as an AR tag in their own photo caption.
  - http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
    
    Gah – I didn’t get my edit in quick enough. Now I look even more ridiculous.
  - TacoChuck
    
    fwiw, in yesterday’s press conference, not only did they mention it was an AR tag, but they said it it was a low res pixelated representation of the rover itself as well.
kP

not bad for 6×6
http://www.facebook.com/people/Flugfrei-Jones/1403604860 Flugfrei Jones

why did they put a picture of the rover on the rover?

i mean.. they could have had bob dobbs scratching his chin with a ? above his head.

or curious george?
- theophrastvs
  
  and if you zoom in to that picture there’s a picture of a Droste ad.
- andygates
  
  That’s so you can tell easily which rover it is! Public domain means lots of people who can’t recognise one rover from another, so name tags in shot make sense. The number of photos I’ve had posted to me from Spirit and Oppy (solar panels, y’see, but you have to be at least a B-grade space nerd to know that) claiming to be from Curiosity… eesh.
- http://glitch.tl/ Michael Smith
  
  why did they put a picture of the rover on the rover?
  
  Yo dawg…
nixiebunny

I hope Curiosity put on its free staring-into-sun cardboard glasses before staring into the sun.
penguinchris

At the BB meetup Bruce Sterling demonstrated an AR phone app that made robots and monsters and stuff appear to be standing on the table when you put a coded piece of paper on it. I can only assume that this is what they’re planning here :)
http://twitter.com/JCS3 John Simmons

Anyone got an app that can read the AR tag? The two I have tried failed.
- failquail
  
  Glad i wasn’t the only person to try to scan it :)
http://twitter.com/JCS3 John Simmons

Rereading the text from the JPL “The “augmented reality” or AR tag seen in the foreground can be used in the future with smart phones to obtain more information about the mission. ”

The fact that it mentions being used in the future, rather than today, suggests that this isnt a supported just yet.
lumpygravy2

Fru-fru poser gadget p0rn when a simple US Govt. standard issue stenciled ‘curiosity’ would do. I imagine some contractor got piles of money for delivering this silly tack on bit of BS.
http://top-medical-schools.net/how-to-become-a-dermatologist/ Alex Brennt

Would be great to see the app that can read theese AR codes.
Neal McBurnett

They talked about the ARTag in the JPL press conference on 2012-08-09 also. It is used, e.g., by NASA’s Spacecraft 3D app:

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2012-07/nasas-spacecraft-3-d-app-offers-augmented-reality-ride-along-curiosity-grail

For background, see the site http://www.artag.net/

But note that there seems to be a problem with the original ARTag implementation, developed at Canada’s National Research Council. It isn’t available any more from them, and the programmer that wrote it (Mark Fiala) is trying to get it released.
Neal McBurnett

See some examples of Augmented Reality using ARTag on youtube, e.g. this one, especially towards the end: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItOtTdhDoto