2017 in Review 1: New Planetary Web Mapping Servers
2017 brought a boom in planetary online WMS services. We show you which new service can do what.
The new Google map
Google worked closely with NASA the next corner in Silicon Valley to prepare the highest, 5m/px resolution global photomosaic of Mars in 2012 that even researchers used for browsing Mars, only available through Google Earth, but not in the web-based map. This year Google added a wealth of new layers, although nothing is published about the image sources or cartographic control. Perhaps at LPSC2018. The service “as is” but still provides the fastest planetary image browsing opportunity for the armchair scientist. Maps include clickable nomenclature. The uniqueness of Google maps is that they are original photomosaics you can’t find elsewhere.
Some of the additions include
- a beautiful high resolution multiscale color map of Mercury, which shows albedo at low resolution and low-sun relief view when you zoom in, both MESSENGER data
- a global radar view of Venus at full Magellan resolution
- a so-so albedo view of the Moon
- Mars is now a not very seamless but quite high resolution HRSC color mosaic with some gaps
- Ceres is added but not Vesta
- Color and multiscale mosaic for Ganymede and Callisto
- Titan is a nicely rendered seamless infrared+radar view at high resolution
- Pluto and Charon is also the highest resolution global mosaic in color
- And mosaics for other outer solar system satellites
https://www.google.com/maps/space/earth
ESRI’s Solar System Atlas
The company behind ArcGIS, the most commonly used mapping software in planetary cartography, has published its online atlas from the layers also available for direct import into an ArcGIS project. Unlike for Google, credit is given for all image sources, but in this case mosaicking was not done by ESRI, but all maps were taken from USGS/NASA. This service is basically a tile service to quickly display existing data, including geologic maps.
http://esripm.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapJournal/index.html?appid=f737586c543e48428b96df64057ebed0#map
Planetary Surface Portal / PSUP
This is a service from French university observatories (Paris Sud and Lyon), who made their OMEGA data available through this service. OMEGA (Observatoire pour la Mineralogie, l’Eau, les Glaces et l’Activit) is a hyperspectral imaging spectrometer developed in France, originally for a failed Russian mission, onboard the European Mars Express spacecraft. Mineralogial and albedo data can be viewed, and downloaded from the WMS along with some feature database layers.
http://psup.ias.u-psud.fr/sitools/client-user/index.html?project=PLISonMars
Planetary Cesium Viewer
The Cesium technology based viewer from the Paris Sud University in France shows global mosaics for basically all major moons and planets in the Solar System, including the gas giants. The maps can be viewed as globes or 2D flat maps. The code is open, and available on Github.
Open Planetary Map Mars Basemap v0.1
The Open Planetary project aims to develop a vector based Mars map that users can modify and personalize. This is a community-based project where planetary scientists can share their cartographic ideas. The map using CARTO Builder and there are detailed instructions on how you can build your own map within this system. This is the first attempt to create a vector-based Mars basemap, which would bring fresh air into a raster-filled planetary mapping universe.
http://openplanetary.co/opm/#3/11.80/-45.04
Moon Trek
The official NASA outreach/research map combo for the Moon, an online platform for both enthusiasts and researchers. Numerous datasets, mapping and analysis tools are offered. Developed at NASA Ames and JPL in California.
https://moontrek.jpl.nasa.gov
And we did not list those WMS services that started before 2017…
Which one is your favorite? Vote for the best new planetary WMS in 2017:
The Digital Museum of Planetary Mapping is supported by the ICA Commission on Planetary Cartography. We collect maps of other worlds. Curator: H. Hargitai
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Tables
Charts
| Column name | Column description |
|---|---|
| Catalog ID (M) | N/A |
| Title | Title of map |
| Author | Name of mapper(s), or author, PI, map editor, illustrator, etc. with roles |
| Nationality | Nationality of author |
| Start date | Year when mapping began / or year or observation |
| Date of publication | Year of publication or completion of manusctipt (empty if not published yet) |
| Body | Target name (planetary body) |
| Online | Online references about the map |
| Projection | Projection of map. 2-hemisphere is shown here. |
| Scale | N/A |
| Orientation | Orientation of map [north up, south up] – only for historic maps (north: cartographic tradition, south: astronomical tradition) |
| Publication type | The type of work that contains the map. [standalone, journal, conference, atlas, book figure, book supplement, book plate, encyclopedia, multisheet, digital] |
| Type, purpose | Type of map purpose [generic, outreach, science, citizen, surface operation (pre mission), landing site (post mission), observer, opposition, index, reference, eclipse/transit/occultation] generic: not defined, outreach: maps for the general public made b |
| Primary Nomenclature | Laguage(s) of nomenclature displayed on the map [Latin, English etc., IAU, informal]. Latin for Latin nomenclature prior to IAU. |
| Ref (map) | Full reference of map publication or publication that contains the map |
| DOI | DOI number of map |
| ID (publication) | ID of map publication or figure number |
| Origin type | If this map is not original, the following codes are used: [L: language variant, N: new print, U: updated edition, C: copied / modified from another map, R: renovation map (digital version of paper map with slight changes), F facsimile. RP: republished in |
| Origin ID | Any maps that this map is based on or copied from. Database ID of original map. |
| Based on map | Name of mapper |
| Base (spacecraft, telescope) | Name of spacecraft / instrument |
| Original title | Title of map in original langage (if not English) |
| Publisher | Name of Publisher; manuscript or self-published. For journals and conferences, the name of the journal or conference. |
| Coverage | Coverage of map [global, hemispheric, regional, local, landing site, landing ellipse, traverse] |
| Target location | IAU name of target feature (if named) or near side, far side etc. (If nothing noted, it is global) |
| Country | Country of Publisher (original/translation) |
| Type, content | Type of map [photo, map, sketch map, drawing, globe, tactile, data]. Data for raster datasets. For vector data, see Feature DB. Drawing: no grid, scale, projection etc. |
| Image base | Base theme of the map [shaded relief, photomosaic, photo, none] |
| Theme | Theme of map [visual, albedo, radar, low sun, topography, elevation, geology, geomorphology, art, nomenclature reference, feature, landing site reference, opposition map, event (eclipse etc) etc.]. Low sun is optical photo with shadows and no albedo. Vis |
| Technique | Cartographic technique [imagemap, datamap, cartographic map, unit map, airbrush, pencil, line drawing/outline, contour lines, DEM, DIM, shaded relief / hillshading, raster data etc.] |
| Style | Details on style |
| Method | Method how the data was obtained |
| Mapping scale | Scale of mapping |
| Resolution | Raster dataset resoltion [m/pixel] |
| Short Reference | Short form of reference to the map publication |
| GIS / data | URL where GIS or original spatial data is |
| Data provider | N/A |
| Profession | Profession of author (for historic maps) |
| Designator | Sheet designator terms following Greeley and Batson (1990) Planetary Mapping. Cambridge University Press. – only if displayed on the map. First letter: target body, 5M: scale, 90/0 etc: center coordinates, OM – orthophotomosaic , T – Topographic data (nom |
| Control | Controlled, semi-controlled, uncontrolled |
| Note on control | Base of control |
| Series title | Title of map series |
| Number of maps (in work) | N/A |
| Number of quads | N/A |
| Quad ID | Quad ID (or quads IDs) contained on the map |
| Map Diameter | N/A |
| Map width cm | N/A |
| Map height cm | N/A |
| Map width px | N/A |
| Map height px | N/A |
| Base type | Type of instrument of observation of base data [naked eye, telescope, spacecraft, space telescope, lander] |
| Location of copy | Library or archive where manuscript or rare copy is kept |
| Ref (literature) | Reference – literature about the map, may be the source of data if the map is not available. Separated with # symbols. |
| Status (2017) | Status of mapping [complete, in progress, in review] (mostly for USGS maps) |
| Aim | Original aim of mapping, if available |
| Notes | Any comments, remarks [Long text, may be multiple paragraphs] |
| Secondary nomenclature | Other languages of the nomenclature |
| Nomenclature Notes | Remarks on nomenclature |
| Photo note | N/A |
| Reference frame | ID from RefFrames |
| web2 | Online references about the map |
| web3 | Online references about the map |
| web4 | Online references about the map |
| ocentric/ographic | Map coordinate [planetographic, planetocentric] |
| N | N/A |
| S | N/A |
| W 360E | N/A |
| E 360E | N/A |
| W 180 | N/A |
| E 180 | N/A |
| W 360W | N/A |
| R 360W | N/A |
| fig1 | N/A |
| fig1 caption | N/A |
| fig2 | N/A |
| fig2 caption | N/A |
| fig3 | N/A |
| fig3 caption | N/A |
| fig4 | N/A |
| fig4 caption | N/A |
| fig5 | N/A |
| fig5 caption | N/A |
| STATUS | N/A |
| Sum | $180 |