Curiosity rover track update

Curiosity rover, the largest and most recent rover NASA has landed on Mars continues to make excellent progress. Below is a map of where it has been. An attachment overlays this map on the surface of Mars. For much more detail about the mission go to this NASA site.

Google Mars has only the very beginning of this long journey marked so far. 

MSL Curiosity rover traverse.kmz (193.97 KB)

NASA just published this image 

Very cool.  Someone should get Google to take your rover track update and put it into the Curiosity layer.  The old one is so far out of date!  Same thing with the Opportunity track.  It's a no brainer!

A view from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on April 8, 2015, catches sight of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover passing through a valley called "Artist's Drive" on the lower slope of Mount Sharp.
The image is from the orbiter's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera. It shows the rover's position after a drive of about 75 feet (23 meters) during the 949th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's work on Mars.
North is toward the top. The rover's location, with its shadow extending toward the right, is indicated with an inscribed rectangle. The view in this image covers an area about 550 yards (500 meters) across. SOURCE

This brings to mind the scene on Tatooine in which R2D2 is captured by the Jawas. I wonder if Curiosity is feeling a bit nervous?

 

Attachments:

Curiosity on Mars.kmz (827 B)

I've spent a lot of time trying to get this to line up, but the imagery angles are just too different. I will award a Brass Figlagee with bronze oak leaf palm to anyone who can achive a flawless match.

There is another way of creating an overlay besides the built-in overlay tool. A long, long time ago someone posted an overlay that was created / adjusted by moving each of the four corners independently, in much the same way that one paints a surface in Sketchup by stretching an image over a surface. My guess is that is how Google matches up imagery on a curved surface. I saved a copy, but that disappeared several computers ago. I'll add a tin pineapple to Hill's Figlagee for anyone who can help me find it again.

Apr 5, 2015 1:10:21 GMT Frank4 said:

Very cool.  Someone should get Google to take your rover track update and put it into the Curiosity layer.  The old one is so far out of date!  Same thing with the Opportunity track.  It's a no brainer!

One would think.

May 3, 2015 5:29:53 GMT washi said:

I've spent a lot of time trying to get this to line up, but the imagery angles are just too different. I will award a Brass Figlagee with bronze oak leaf palm to anyone who can achive a flawless match.

There is another way of creating an overlay besides the built-in overlay tool. A long, long time ago someone posted an overlay that was created / adjusted by moving each of the four corners independently, in much the same way that one paints a surface in Sketchup by stretching an image over a surface. My guess is that is how Google matches up imagery on a curved surface. I saved a copy, but that disappeared several computers ago. I'll add a tin pineapple to Hill's Figlagee for anyone who can help me find it again.

Yes if the corners and sides could be moved independently that would make many an un-achieved lined up overlay possible.

I found THESE TOOLS but haven't tried them yet. One may be useful for standard overlays.

THIS also looks like it might do the trick.