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   sci.space.tech      Technical and general issues related to      3,113 messages   

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   Message 1,637 of 3,113   
   Thomas Billings to Bill Bogen   
   Re: Lunar Lava Tubes via Clementine   
   28 Feb 04 08:13:44   
   
   From: itsd1@teleport.com   
      
   In article ,   
    wbogen@visteon.com (Bill Bogen) wrote:   
      
   > Thomas Billings  wrote in message   
   > news:...   
   > > In article ,   
   > >  wbogen@visteon.com (Bill Bogen) wrote:   
   > >   
   > > > Thomas Billings  wrote in message   
   > > > news:...   
   > > > > In article ,   
   > > > >  wbogen@visteon.com (Bill Bogen) wrote:   
   > > > >   
   > > snip  <   
   > > > Any idea how many person-hours were consumed?   
   > >   
   > > Between our team, the very nice Sun Software Engineers who volunteered   
   > > their time from their Portland area office, the company that donated the   
   > > Suns, the Caltech Grad students who tried to help us after their team   
   > > leader left for Redmond, and a few others, probably about 150-200+   
   > > manhours.   
   > >   
   > > Sigh!   
   > >   
   > > >   
   > > > >   
   > > > > The head of that software project quit Caltech and joined Microsoft in   
   > > > > the middle of our efforts. 'Nuff said!   
   > > > >   
   > > > > >If not, did anyone ever begin a   
   > > > > > _manual_ search of the 620,000 high-resolution visible-light   
   > > > > > Clementine images?   
   > > > >   
   > > > > We looked at this, and looked at our local support group, and quailed!   
   > > >   
   > > > Why?  Isn't the human eye&brain a wonderful pattern recognition   
   > > > device?  Maybe I'm being naive here but I'd set up the project this   
   > > > way:  10 people each sitting in front of a PC for about 2 hours a day.   
   > >   
   > > We didn't have 10 people.   
   >   
   > Maybe, if done as an Internet project, enough people could be   
   > recruited to make this happen.   
   >   
   > > >  Display an image.  The person decides whether it is a possible   
   > > > lavatube and flags it with a keystroke.  Since the vast bulk of   
   > > > pictures will be rejects, I'd expect an average rate of about 1   
   > > > sec/image.  We'd be done in 9 days.  Let's triple that and let each   
   > > > image be seen by 3 people; we'd rank each image by consensus.  Let's   
   > > > pay each person $10/hr: labor cost = $5,167.  Even adding costs for   
   > > > software to present the images and record flags, project management,   
   > > > etc, this still seems pretty cheap.   
   > >   
   > > This is true with sufficiently fast download times. Back then we didn't   
   > > have that for our team. For some on our team, we don't today.   
   >   
   > Nowadays, with DSL and multi-gig hard drives, I'm not so concerned   
   > about whether people and hardware can be gathered.  A bigger question   
   > may be: is this neurologically feasible?  IOW, do you think that the   
   > photos are of sufficient resolution, contrast, etc that   
   > properly-trained people might actually detect signs of lava tubes?   
      
   Indeed, there's the rub! Even though Dr. Shoemaker was very encouraging   
   when he visited us in late 1994, he did warn us that the photos were   
   optimized for geochemical sensing, not for detecting terrain   
   differentials. They tried for direct overhead shots at local noon, for   
   maximum reflection for their suite of multi-spectral sensors. This makes   
   for few, if any, shadows, the keys to terrain. We have too little   
   experience with the larger suite of Clementine photos to know for sure   
   how easy others will find it. I found it hard, by eyeball.   
      
   > If   
   > so, how might the people be trained, assuming this were done via   
   > Internet?  Perhaps work up a quiz/tutorial of images (some suspected   
   > by experts of showing signs of lava tubes and some not) and only   
   > select the highest scoring individuals?  Or better yet, let anyone   
   > play but, when later forming a consensus/score for a given Clementine   
   > image, weight that person's choices by their score on the quiz?   
      
   Unless someone out there has done more than the minimal amount of   
   eyeball work we did with the pictures in finding terrain features, this   
   last idea seems a bit more hopefull to me.   
      
   I would recommend starting at :   
      
   http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/clementine.html   
      
   There is a browser for the images, as well as much Clementine   
   information in links and pages.   
      
   Regards,   
      
   Tom Billings   
      
   --   
   Oregon L-5 Society   
      
   http://www.oregonl5.org/   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)   

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