Experience Curiosity is an interactive web application developed by

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedi ...

Jet Propulsion Laboratory The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center in the City of La Cañada Flintridge, California, United States. Founded in the 1930s by Caltech researchers, JPL is owned by NASA ...

to celebrate the third anniversary of the ''Curiosity'' rover landing on

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin atmos ...

. This 3D

serious game A serious game or applied game is a game designed for a primary purpose other than pure entertainment. The "serious" adjective is generally prepended to refer to video games used by industries like defense, education, scientific exploration, he ...

makes it possible to operate the rover, control its cameras and the

robotic arm A robotic arm is a type of mechanical arm, usually programmable, with similar functions to a human arm; the arm may be the sum total of the mechanism or may be part of a more complex robot. The links of such a manipulator are connected by join ...

and reproduces some of the prominent events of the

Mars Science Laboratory Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) is a robotic space probe mission to Mars launched by NASA on November 26, 2011, which successfully landed ''Curiosity'', a Mars rover, in Gale Crater on August 6, 2012. The overall objectives include investigati ...

mission. The application was presented at the beginning of the

WebGL WebGL (Short for Web Graphics Library) is a JavaScript API for rendering interactive 2D and 3D graphics within any compatible web browser without the use of plug-ins. WebGL is fully integrated with other web standards, allowing GPU-accelerate ...

section at

SIGGRAPH SIGGRAPH (Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques) is an annual conference on computer graphics (CG) organized by the ACM SIGGRAPH, starting in 1974. The main conference is held in North America; SIGGRAPH Asia ...

2015. According to Brian Kumanchik, the lead and art director behind the project, the development team used exclusively

open-source software Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose. Ope ...

including

Blender A blender (sometimes called a mixer or liquidiser in British English) is a kitchen and laboratory appliance used to mix, crush, purée or emulsify food and other substances. A stationary blender consists of a blender container with a rotating me ...

and

GIMP GIMP ( ; GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a free and open-source raster graphics editor used for image manipulation (retouching) and image editing, free-form drawing, transcoding between different image file formats, and more specialized ...

for creating 3D content, particularly due to public accessibility of open source formats. The

Blend4Web Blend4Web is a free and open source framework for creating and displaying interactive 3D computer graphics in web browsers. Overview The Blend4Web framework leverages Blender to edit 3D scenes. Content rendering relies on WebGL, Web Audio, ...

framework was chosen as a 3D engine which is integrated with Blender, includes a

physics engine A physics engine is computer software that provides an approximate simulation of certain physical systems, such as rigid body dynamics (including collision detection), soft body dynamics, and fluid dynamics, of use in the domains of computer ...

and provides rendering in

mobile Mobile may refer to: Places * Mobile, Alabama, a U.S. port city * Mobile County, Alabama * Mobile, Arizona, a small town near Phoenix, U.S. * Mobile, Newfoundland and Labrador Arts, entertainment, and media Music Groups and labels * Mobile ...

browsers. In 2018, the application was ported to

Verge3D Verge3D is a real-time renderer and a toolkit used for creating interactive 3D experiences running on websites. Overview Verge3D enables users to convert content from 3D modelling tools (Autodesk 3ds Max and Blender are currently supported) to ...

framework.Using the Verge3D as 3D Web Engine is indicated on the official website in Credits in window "About Experience Curiosity" Experience Curiosity won the

Webby Award The Webby Awards are awards for excellence on the Internet presented annually by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a judging body composed of over two thousand industry experts and technology innovators. Categories includ ...

as the best "Government & Civil Innovation" website of 2016. The 5-word speech at the award ceremony was Rockin' and Rovin' on Mars, voiced by NASA's representative Brian Kumanchik.

References

External links

Experience Curiosity

NASA's Eyes
{{authority control 2015 software Astronomy freeware Jet Propulsion Laboratory NASA Mars Science Laboratory

See also

References

External links