Images of Venus created using rayshade.3.0 modified for image texture mapping.

maxwell.rle

	Maxwell Montes, a large mountain range sitting on the eastern end
	of Lakshmi Planum in a northern section of Venus called Ishtar.
	This view is from the west looking toward the western edge of
	Maxwell which rises abruptly about 10 km above the plane. 

	The image was rendered using a 512x512 height field generated
	from Pioneer Venus altimetry data.  A second 512x512 data set from
	Soviet Venera spacecraft radar images was texture-mapped onto the 
	height field with a much-hacked-upon version of rayshade.3.0 here
	at the Planetary Geophysics Laboratory.  Looks like version 4.0
	will do this without the hack.   


eistla.rle

	Eistla Regio region of Venus consists of two large volcanos, Gula Mons
	and Sif Mons.  This image is from the north looking towards Gula Mons
	across a lava flow.  The lava flow is about 300 km long and has been
	imaged from Earth by the Arecibo facility.  This image was generated
	from Pioneer Venus and Magellan altimetry and from Magellan radar
	images.  The two brown strips ("jeep tracks") are areas that haven't
	yet been mapped by the Magellan probe.


eistla2.rle
	
	This is a view from the southeast looking up a valley filled with
	cracks and ridges and lava flows between Gula and Sif.



Colors

	A generic "dirt" value was chosen for the landscape.  This has been
	modulated by the radar data to produce the range of colors seen
	in the images. 

	Much heated debate went into the rendering of the sky and clouds.
	We first used a black sky (a la JPL) but found the images difficult
	to view and less-than-aesthetic.  Mist and fog were introduced to give
	a sense of depth and size to these enormous features, and various
	yellow, brown, and gray backgrounds were evaluated.  Chris Hayward
	and Steve Mueller then made strong arguments that humans tend to see
	large bodies (like the sky or the ocean) as blue and purple, evidently
	related to the way light refracts.  Venus is of course shrouded in
	clouds and the amount and color of light that makes it to the surface
	is still a subject of controversy.  We settled on a light blue sky
	on a cloudy day for these images.


David Anderson
Planetary Geophysics Labortory
Southern Methodist University
dpa@venus.isem.smu.edu