Some of the children in today's schools will grow up to be be the first people to set foot on Mars. Preparing them for this experience is the objective of the Mars Project.
This is just phase one. The complete project will be an educational simulation of the colonization of the Red Planet. Students will get the opportunity to experience the trip and the settlement of Mars through virtual reality.
Through the use of CD-ROM content, Internet communication and support teaching materials, individuals or classes will compete in simulations to reach and colonize the planet. They will have to make decisions that affect the success of their virtual explorers and colonists. Through this they will learn about science, math, economics, politics and social studies.
Rob Martin is a digital artist working in Boulder Colorado. He specializes in creating immersive environments that combine rich media components including 3D, QuickTime VR and Shockwave to create photo-realistic interactive experiences. Rob is the co-author of the Director 8 and Lingo Bible. When not in front of his computer creating digital worlds, Rob can be found wandering the desert southwest photographing QuickTime VR panoramas of Anasazi Indian ruins.
Gary Rosenzweig is the chief engineer and owner of CleverMedia.com, one of the most popular Shockwave game sites on the Internet. He founded the company in 1996. He is the author of five books about Director, Lingo and Shockwave, and has worked on many interactive multimedia projects since 1988. In his spare time, he likes to read classic science fiction books by authors like Robert Heinlein, Harry Harrison, Issac Asimov, Arthur C. Clark and Edgar Rice Burroughs.
The 360 degree panoramas of Mars were created primarily using Corel® Bryce 4. Bryce is a 3D program designed to create photo-realistic terrains and lent itself perfectly for creating the marscapes used in this project. The Bryce images were then converted to QuickTime VR panoramas using apple's QuickTime VR Authoring Studio.
Here's a complete list of the software used:
Strata Studio Pro
QuickTime VR Authoring Studio
The concepts and imagery for this site were heavily influenced by Kim Stanley Robinson Mars trilogy and The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must, by Rober Zubrin.
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