OnSight: Multi-platform terrain visualization for science, engineering, and public outreach(NPO-50830-1)

OnSight allow scientists and engineers to immerse themselves within a reconstruction of the terrain around the Curiosity rover. Prior to OnSight, scientists worked primarily by viewing 2D images or panoramas sent back by the Curiosity rover. However, it is extremely difficult to get a sense of three dimensional relationships by viewing 2D images. Three-dimensional visualization on traditional computer screens has been available to a subset of Mars mission operations teams since the late 1990s. However, these interfaces have not been available to the full mission science team and do not offer the intuitive understanding that is gained when one explores the environment in the same ways that they explore an environment on Earth.Using an immersive display, OnSight can render a reconstruction of Mars at full scale, and allow users to navigate the model by simply walking and looking around. This interaction model requires little to no training, because it takes advantage of motor skills and spatial reasoning abilities that humans develop instinctively. It also enables field scientists to access the skills and intuition that they have developed while exploring environments on Earth. OnSight provides the closest experience to working on Mars without physically being there. By enabling users to utilize all their spatial reasoning ability, users gain improved spatial comprehension of the environment, which enables them to efficiently plan safe rover operations and make new scientific discoveries.OnSight was developed for the context of Mars exploration, but the system provides general capability for visualization and virtual presence in a remote environment. There are many potential applications of technology, including Earth based terrain visualization (e.g. caves, lava fields, remote field sites), as well as other planetary and asteroid surfaces.