Red-blue anaglyph 3D images are not difficult to make as it turns out. JPL posts the raw rover images at their web site so you too can play rocket scientist and create a view of Mars that's yours alone. Instructions for Photoshop are available on the web, although it does take some trial and error as I found out. Here’s what I came up with for PhotoImpact XL. Load both left and right images; it helps to denote this in the filename since it can be hard to figure this out by just looking at them. Make the right red with the "color adjust" function (increase red to the maximum), and left all blue and green, that is cyan. Dark areas should be strongly colored, either red or cyan. Paste each image to a new (blank) image of the same size, one with separate, moveble layers. Increase the transparency on the front layer so that both images can be seen, and don the colored glasses. Select one layer and shift it until depth and distance appears on the screen. Take your time, some pairs work, and some don't, and contrast and brightness levels may need adjustment to heighten the depth effect. Make minor tweaks, save the best image with the layers "flattened" in a popular image format such as JPEG.

On your home planet (bottom, right), you can DIY in 3D with just a single camera. Ordinary prints will work if scanned, but a digital camera saves that step. I've leared that the images should be shifted from left to right by a relatively modest amount, several inches or less. Any rotation or "roll" should be avoided, so use a tripod. To maintain orientation and control shift, I slide the camera laterally on a slotted bar bolted on the tripod head. Set side by side, the apparent differences between the images should be slight. Obvious differences, catchlights or striking dark features confuse the brain and make it difficult to see depth. It also helps if the scene is flat (i.e., low contrast) and nearly monochromatic (or of a single color hue). Anaglyphs use color to transmit distance information to the brain, and real-world colors confuse things. In fact, the first step in processing color pictures is often to convert them to grayscale. One more thing: shoot at high resolution since they seem to turn out better. Perhaps the fine detail is crucial to the illusion of spatial depth.

From these first attempts, I’m even more impressed with the capabilities of JPL. I’m half expecting the next set of Martian postcards to say: “Wish you were here!”  While scientists have described the landscape as “bizarre and alien,” I still think it's more like Earth than not. Besides, Opportunity's crater contain one geological feature that is very Earth-like: layered rock in the place it formed. It might be volcanic and windblown, it might be evidence of water, it might be something entirely different. Opportunity plans to roll over and see which it is. Let the snapshots roll in.

Those funny glasses are needed to see depth in the images at right. Moondark is written by Doug Miller, published at  the Moondark web site, and printed in the Delmarva Star Gazers' Star Gazer News. This document was last revised on 13 February 2004. Text and images copyright © 2004 by Douglas C. Miller, All Rights Reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without prior permission.