A sample of a MARDI sidewalk movie taken by the Curiosity Rover during a drive on sol 3631. Scientists (and I would defer to the experts such as @TerraSabaea for detailed explanation) can use these to stitch together an image strip covering the entire drive path along with determining depth and other fun bits.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill

#Mars #MSL #CuriosityRover #NASA #Astrodon #Space

@kevinmgill Yep! MARDI was designed to film the final stages of Curiosity's landing. Although the camera is slightly out of focus (long, sad story), we still make use of it to see the ground underneath the rover, where the rover's other cameras don't see. MARDI is unique in that it is the only camera that can film while driving, so we can image large swaths of terrain at a consistent scale and angle. Overlapping film frames also mean we can make shape-from-motion digital terrain models.