NASA offers 3D images of the entire Moon, made for those who specialize in computer graphics as well as artists.
If you are a graphic artist and want to make a movie or game based on the Moon, it is not difficult to find images of the moon. But NASA has just released a useful, beautiful and new set of 3D graphics and data-only graphics creators that includes not only flat images but also depth, making it simple to create a detailed 3D map of the Moon.
The CGI Moon Kit comes from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, where Ernie Wright he found that the Moon data he had collected (for other purposes) would be quite popular with 3D artists.
The data came from two organs located on top NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, a space satellite orbiting the moon for over a decade, taking pictures and taking measurements all the time.
On board the satellite is a high-quality camera, which has been used to build an amazingly high-quality map of the lunar surface. The camera can only capture a small comeye each time, but it does so continuously, and as the satellite's orbit shifts, it has recorded almost the entire visible region of the Moon. Although some dark areas cannot be imaged, even after passing the satellite thousands of times.
But the photos are only part of the map. To create the XNUMXD model of the Moon's surface, NASA also has a laser measurements height. This sends a pulsed laser beam towards the surface and monitors both how long it takes to return and how strong it returns. So it collects how far away the surface is (and therefore the altitude) with an accuracy of half a meter, as well as what kind of surface it is, like for example a hard rocky or soft powder etc.
These data are collected and a topographic map is made where instead of contour lines the Colour. There are two variations of this map, but the basic usage is the same. You print the map on a surface and then wrap it around a sphere and you have a virtual topographical world of the Moon.
Watch the video below:
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a004700/a004720/moon_mapping_360p30.mp4
NASA's CGI Moon Kit is free to download and all data is available with some options that only 3D artists will probably understand. You can find out more about it and get it by clicking here .
