Lunar (LOLA) data -- has anyone worked with this?

[dduane]

Hi all!

I need to do some renders of lunar terrain for a new book cover, and I've been feeling my way around the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter site at NASA (http://pds-geosciences.wustl.edu/missions/lro/default.htm) trying to find out how to convert their data files for use in Terragen. Was looking for something similar to the way they've structured the data / downloadables for MOLA, but the formats seem to be all different.

Has anyone worked with this stuff before? If so, can I get some advice on how to go about this? Would prefer not to reinvent the wheel if possible.

best! -- Diane

ETA: putting some links here for my own reference (and others' if they need them):

Explanation of the .JP2 / JPEG2000 images the LOLA folks are using: http://imbrium.mit.edu/DOCUMENT/JP2INFO.TXT

Thumbnails for LOLA (cylindrical) gridded images: http://imbrium.mit.edu/BROWSE/LOLA_GDR/CYLINDRICAL.html

Index to LOLA gridded (GDR) polar images: http://imbrium.mit.edu/DATA/LOLA_GDR/POLAR/

Index of directory of LOLA cylindrical gridded (GDR) images in .IMG format: http://imbrium.mit.edu/DATA/LOLA_GDR/CYLINDRICAL/IMG/

Ditto for .JP2 format images: http://imbrium.mit.edu/DATA/LOLA_GDR/CYLINDRICAL/JP2/

Homepage of IMG2PNG conversion software: http://www.mmedia.is/bjj/utils/img2png/

Notes re conversion of JP2 or PDS using GDAL: https://isis.astrogeology.usgs.gov/IsisSupport/index.php?topic=2708.0;wap2

[freelancah]

Hey! How did this go? Did you get them working? I'm interested in these as well but haven't had enough time to do research on how to convert them to workable formats

[billhd]

Diane, You have some neat book covers!

Is your intent to render the surface close up?  If so the data files will not provide anywhere near the surface detail you need.  If you don't need to replicate a known location you can do without them.  Low octave power fractals can achieve the soft rounded hill appearance.
A few TG2 renders of the moon are at   http://planetaryexplorer.blogetery.com/    and one is attached.

Bill

[freelancah]

Hmm the conversion software "IMG2PNG" seems to work quite well. I got a grayscale maps out of my tests and those are something I can work with. Will download rest of the IMG files and attempt to build a large equirectangular imagemap and see what happens..