...at your cavalier dismissal of the entire Martian landscape as uninteresting.
I don't know how you got that out of what I said.
I asked you other than your technical challenges, did you enjoy the ROVER and the MARTIAN LANDSCAPE (... implying "as much as I did").
The fact that you can zoom in to the far horizon or to nearby rocks is awesome. Even IF it is not 100% realistic.
How did you come up with the idea I was 'dismissing the landscape'? You seem to be the one who is so focused on the minor imperfections, and missing the beautiful view, if we are to believe your comments.
Well, I complained that the panorama moved around various features, which to me is the landscape, and it’s certainly not “soil” or “dirt”, and then you said it looked like a dried river bed and it “WASN”T WHAT INTERESTED ME”. It’s like you don’t even SEE the landscape.
True you referred to the “martian landscape” but you know, it isn’t the martian landscape, it’s a hodge-podge. I want to see what’s there, not some fabrication.
It’s a fascinating place, and as Curiosity moves around, I like to look for the features that were closer or more distant in other views. This is a lot harder to do than you’d think because prominent nearby feature can appear very differently, or even be hidden, from a location displaced by 30 feet or so. But you can build up a sense of place by learning various reference points.
I was very impressed by the cleaned up descent video, which was done scientifically to bring out details and smooth the motion of the descent. It remains entirely faithful to the actual view, though.
There is also an interactive panorama from images taken at the landing site, which I believe is a faithful representation. The image coverage was more comprehensive in that case, so that guy didn’t have to do violence to the scenery to get the cool effects, I guess.
The striking effect of these interactive pano’s is produced by the ability to pan while keeping a wide field of view. You can zoom in and out on a fixed panorama made with full resolution, and this is nice, but it is not nearly as impressive as the interactive jobs.