A virtual environment for the accurate geologic analysis of Martian terrain

Remote geology on planetary surfaces requires immersive presentation of the environment to be investigated. Three-dimensional (3D) processing of images from rovers and satellites enables to reconstruct terrain in virtual space on Earth for scientific analysis. In this paper we present a virtual environment that allows to interactively explore 3D-reconstructed Martian terrain and perform accurate measurements on the surface. Geologists do not only require line-of-sight measurements between two points but much more the projected line-of-sight on the surface between two such points. Furthermore the tool supports to define paths of several points.