Introducing PlanetWarp!
Explanation:
Earlier this year LPOD introduced J-P Metsavainio's procedure for using the commercial software Photoshop to digitally project telescopic lunar images onto a sphere. This manipulation restores foreshortened limb craters into circles. Now Philip Masding and Mike Tyrrell have written a Windows program to accomplish the same thing more easily and without the need to purchase Photoshop. The software works by loading an image and identifying the limb of the Moon by clicking on points along its limb. This enables the software to determine the scale and position of the image. Then by selecting any point on the image a new view will be automatically produced as if the viewer were directly above that point. The view can also be zoomed in and out to show different amounts of the surface. The software is primarily intended for use with lunar images but it may also be useful for remapping images of sunspots or other solar system objects. In future versions it will be possible to view the surface from any point in space, not just overhead. And one more thing: Phillip and Mike are Santa this year - they will soon be distributing PlanetWarp for free!
—
Chuck Wood
Technical Details:
As a Macintosh user I sadly report that this program is only for the Windows operating systems.
Related Links:
PlanetWarp
J-P Metsavainio, A New Way of Looking at the Moon. Sky & Telescope, Jan 2005, p 142-146.
