3D rendering software module to help study comet 67P

19th December 2014

The Qt company

Nat Bowers

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The Qt Company, a subsidiary of Digia, is working with the ESA in order to develop a 3D rendering software module that will be used in the ESA MAPPS planning and analysing tool. First needed in the survey mission currently studying comet 67P by the Rosetta spacecraft, the ESA requires rendering algorithms that can deal with irregular bodies in addition to normal spheroid shaped planets.

The ESA MAPPS planning tool is based entirely on Qt (since Qt 2.x) and it is not only used for the Rosetta science operations, but also for other previous and upcoming planetary science missions.

The goal of the Rosetta mission is to seek the origin of comets and create a portrait of the comet’s nucleus, its makeup and how that changes as it orbits the sun. A key challenge of developing mapping and visualisation software to support these aims is that comets are expected to be irregular and therefore unsuitable for modelling as (flattened) spheres - the approach taken with planetary missions.

In order to render the visualisation elements on the 3D model of the comet in the planning tool, a two-step approach will be put in place. First, all elements will need to be rendered on a texture map that represents the surface of the comet and takes into account its irregular shape. This texture is then provided to the MAPPS tool that then applies it to the surface of the model allowing planning and data analytics to be performed in 3D.

The Qt Company was chosen as the partner with ESA for this project as the Qt cross-platform development framework enables rapid software development and supports the GPU hardware acceleration required for complex 3D rendering software.

Work has just started on developing the software.

Image provided courtesy of the European Space Agency at http://sci.esa.int/rosetta/.