New Mars

Even if you haven’t heard of him, chances are that you’ve seen one of Kees Veenenbos’ works on the web or in a magazine such as National Geographic - Kees is one of the world’s foremost creators of Mars art. Kees uses data from NASA’s Mars spacecraft to create stunning renders of Mars as it is now, and may have been in a watery past. New Mars has spoken with Kees in a previous article about his work, and Stuart Atkinson welcomes him back once more to this website with a new interview that covers how he creates his images and his associations with NASA and ESA.

Even if you haven’t heard of him, chances are that you’ve seen one of Kees Veenenbos’ works on the web or in a magazine such as National Geographic - Kees is one of the world’s foremost creators of Mars art. Kees uses data from NASA’s Mars spacecraft to create stunning renders of Mars as it is now, and may have been in a watery past.

View some of Kees’ artworks at his website

New Mars: Kees, first of all, welcome back to New Mars!

Kees Veenenbos: Nice to be back for an interview. A lot has happened since my first interview for New Mars :)

NM: Regular readers of New Mars will already know that you’re one of the world’s foremost Mars artists, and that your digital work is as acclaimed as the paintings of more conventional artists like Don Davis, Ron Miller and William K Hartmann. But for the many new readers and members who have joined us here since the Mars Exploration Rovers landed on Mars, could you describe briefly what it is you do? (explanation of how you create realistic renderings of Mars from MOLA data)

KV: I started to make landscapes about 5 years ago. At that time with random-made digital elevation models, but I discovered the USGS digital elevation maps and about 3 years ago also the first MOLA elevations models of Mars. Since that time I have focused on using these models to make visualizations of Mars, as it looks today, but also in the past when there was more water and ice present. You can talk about those circumstances but an image can tell you immediately how it looks. I make these situations visible for the public. And since the NASA rovers have proved that Mars was wet once, we can now conclude that below the surface there are still remains of ice and probably even water reservoirs, so I can continue with more certainty to make visualizations of a Mars with a watery past. The ground radar of the Mars Express will give us more evidence about the existence of ice and water in the crust of Mars, too.

NM: Since you were last interviewed here on New Mars, things seem to have gone a bit crazy for you. In fact, it seems no magazine article or TV news report is complete without one of your Mars renderings or animations! If it’s not too embarrassing for you, could you run through some of your recent showcases for our readers?

KV: I put a lot of those images online on my website. In the beginning there were not a lot of visitors, but magazines seem to have a nose and eye for visualizations that could show the audience about Mars’s past and present. The German magazine GEO started to publish some of them, and other magazines followed as my images showed a different and maybe a more artistic view on Mars. Magazines like Ciel et Espace, Focus in England and Italy, Muy Interessante in Spain, Sky and Telescope and lately National Geographic and Astronomy have used my images too.

NM: Appearing in/on which one of those gave you the biggest buzz?

KV: Appearing in National Geographic is of course an honour. And that assignment gave me an enormous boost to be as accurate and creative as possible to visualizise Mars as it could have looked during an ice age. They asked me first to make an image for the inside, but after that one was finished they seemed to be so happy with the result they asked me also to make the cover. Not a lot of people on this Earth are given that opportunity. I enjoyed every moment of it! They were very patient and we had numerous talks about how the image should be look like. They asked me to make two images and the Maraldi Crater was finally chosen.

NM: How did you feel the first time you saw your rendering of the Maraldi crater on a Nat Geo. cover in a newsagent’s?

KV: In fact: I had a first glance when I looked at the covers for next month on various sites of NGM. On some sites you can vote for the cover. But to have one in your hands is different. I hadn’t yet read the story, so I was also very curious about the article Oliver Morton wrote about the rovers and the Marsian ice age.

NM: How are you approached by people wanting to use your work?

KV: The magazines simply mail me or phone me. If you put my name in a search machine they’ll find a lot of links to my site with email address. It’s as easy as that.

NM: Where have they usually come across you?

KV: The magazines of course look also at the content of other magazines. Some just use a search machine and find to their surprise those images on my site.

NM: Can you give us a sneak preview of which other publications your work will be appearing in the near future?

KV: Some of my work will be published soon in magazines, books, TV documentairies and even cd covers. In general the publishers don’t want their stories revealed in advance, so I can only talk about that later on. But about the cd covers I can. Arturo Rodriguez is a young American composer who wrote a magnificent symphony called ‘Earth to Mars’. He asked me to use one of my renderings “Sunrise at Schiaparelli Crater”. He will sell this cd also through www.amazon.com (in a few weeks). And there is a rock band Salvaged which used one of my Aram Chaos images for their first cd. My HD animations will be used in a Mars documentary of the Mars Society and a large theater production might be using a few animations for I-MAX presentations. They are even talking a bout producing 3D. That will keep me busy up to August.

NM: I understand you went to the European Space Agency HQ for the planned landing of Beagle 2, back in December of last year. What was that like?

KV: I was asked just two weeks before the event by ESA to give a presentation of my work for the principal investigators, press and government representatives like the German Minister of Education and Science. It was night not to forget. To be so close to the operation rooms and to talk with the responsible people is also some event!

NM: Which members of the “Mars Community” did you meet there?

KV: People like David Southwood, ESA Director of Science, Michael McKay, Flight Operations Director, Augusto Chicarro, the Project Scientist, and Gerhard Neukum, the maker of the HRSC (Stereo Camera).

NM: Did you receive any favourable comments on your work?

KV: In general they are very positive. I always ask if there’s something ‘wrong’ about the visualizations, because I am not a scientist, so any help from those who know about the subject is very important for me to be more accurate. But they seem to be happy with my work and consider it as accurate. They enjoy especially my animations. Not many have seen my new animations. I have now about 15 minutes available at higher resolutions (1280×720). And those fly by’s have a real impact on the viewers; in such animations Mars comes more alive than when I present just the stills.

NM: It must have been exciting to be there at the centre of the action when everyone was looking forward to Beagle’s landing… describe it for us?

KV: The people were very confident about the insertion of the Mars Express spacecraft and the landing of the Beagle 2. Everything was programmed and the insertion went as predicted. But everybody was more nervous about the Beagle2. When the Beagle 2 missed its first contact David Southwood was very disappointed when he had to announce that Beagle 2 had made no contact.

NM: And what was it like when the awful realisation dawned that Beagle 2 wasn’t going to phone home as expected..?

KV: David Southwood looked very sad when he made his first announcement about the Beagle 2 not phoning home.. But at that moment there was still hope that Beagle 2 would bark.. :) At JPL we heard a discussion about he fact that they might have found the ‘crash site’ of the Beagle 2 on a photograph made by the MGS as I remember, but I haven’t seen the photo yet.

NM: Were the US scientists present very sympathetic to the European team?

KV: I haven’t met people of NASA at ESOC in Darmstadt. It was a genuine ESA party and of course the lines were open, because of the Odyssey probe which would act as relay station for the data of the Beagle 2. But I didn’t meet any people from NASA there. But there might be some of them in one of the other control rooms.

NM: What do you think of the pictures sent back by Mars Express? Have you a favourite?

KV: The first image of the HRSC is still my favourite. It shows a part of the far eastern Valles Marineris with canyons. It has a real high resolution of 12 meter per pixel! http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=34498 These are incredible results. But the media seem to have lost some interest in showing these high detailed images. But I visit the ESA site regularly to look at the newest photographs.

NM: Is Mars Express sending back any data you can use in your own work?

KV: The HRSC makes 3D images. From the data elevation models can be retrieved. But for the moment that is not their priority, which I can understand. But for future use it would be interesting to use the elevation models for creative new visualizations of Mars. Gerhard Neukum will look at that, but it might take still some time.. months? Years? One of the other problems is the size of the files that are produced by the camera. We are talking about terrabytes instead of gigabytes!! A normal pc can hardly handle those files.

NM: Moving on to the phenomenal success of the Mars Exploration Rovers now, have you been over to JPL since Spirit or Opportunity landed?

Kees Veenenbos with geologist Nathalie Cabrol and Artemis Westenberg.

KV: I was in California form 6-17 March. I had come to NASA Ames at Mountain View to attend and give a presentation at the Contact 2004 conference. That is a gathering for those who are interested in extraterrestrial life. This year the subject was The Challenge of Mars: Past, Present, Future… People like research scientists Chris McKay and Michael Sims, writer Kim Stanley Robinson, space artists Don Davis and Rick Sternbach and others were present. It’s an exchange of thoughts and they inform each other and the general public about what they are doing at the moment. The moment was right to visit one of my contacts at JPL, Nathalie Cabrol who is a geologist and investigates ‘her’ favourable site the Gusev Crater with the Spirit rover. She proposed this site and of course Gusev was finally chosen as landing site for the MER A Spirit. We e-mailed for a few years. I sent her numerous images of Gusev under different conditions. Of course also those with water and she seemed to have used these also in her presentations “The reason why we have to go to Gusev..” So the images might have contributed to the choice for the Gusev.

NM: How did JPL compare to Darmstadt, the ESA HQ?

KV: NASA is much larger when you look at the people involved. But as you look at the results it might be that they have equal important results from their missions. It’s a pity that the Beagle 2 has been lost, because the exploration for life (ancient or even today’s life) would have been the important event of the century. Now we have to wait for another years to be sure: was or is there life on Mars?

NM: What is your relationship with NASA like now? Do they perhaps supply you with specialist data for use in your work?

KV: I don’t have a special relationship to NASA or ESA. Now and then I send an image, or e-mail them that I have put a new one on my site, but they don’t have more interesting data for me at the moment. The only Mars data that would be nice to use is the HD data from the stereo camera on board of the ME.

NM: Does your work now have official approval from NASA?

KV: There’s no official approval of my work. I inform a few people of NASA, but I don’t have to have that as long as they are contented with the visualizations of this exciting red planet.

NM: Have you supported the MER missions for NASA in any way, perhaps by providing them with renderings of the landing sites?

KV: I might expect that a number of those who are involved with the MER missions have seen my images. When I was at JPL I met also Steve Squyres. Nathalie Cabrol picked him out from the corridor when we were in one of the control rooms. She introduced me as the ‘man who had made the renderings of the landing sites’. It was a surprise to talk to this man who seems to be the most enthusiastic and energetic man on the Mars mission.

NM: What do you think of the pictures returned by the MERs so far? Have you a favourite?

KV: I have three images in mind. Image one: the pancam photo from the Spirit with the Columbia Hills at the horizon. You seem so drawn to go there to see how they look at close range. Happy enough they are getting nearer and nearer now. The second image is the wall in the small crater where the Opportunity landed and which shows the layers of deposits. And the third one is the image with the blueberries, the small spherules, which shows once more the proof of water on Mars.

NM: Your renderings of a “warmer, watery Mars” now seem uncannily accurate, given the findings from Opportunity. Did you allow yourself just a moment of smugness when you heard that Media Briefing about Meridiani once having been underwater?

KV: I had to smile indeed, because when playing with the height data, you can see where water might have been standing on Mars. You see where the canals are and where they end, often in basins and craters. And near the Hematite there are still a lot of canals to be seen. Even on the larger scale of the MOLA data. And in general you can find such conditions all over the planet. Now the question has to be answered: when and for how long were these standing waters present. Opportunity is now nearing Endurance Crater and you can see the thick layers already. Question: are these all deposits in watery conditions? They appear to be meters thick!

NM: Are you working on any new renderings, using data returned by the MERs? When will we be able to see them on your website?

KV: I am experimenting now on 3D anaglyphs and some new renderings, but I am also extremely busy with the new HD animations that I am preparing for a Mars Society documentary about Mars. Not everything goes smoothly and I encounter still problems with the limitations of the software. But you have to be patient and not hasty. It’s the attitude, time and patience that will solve these problems… :)

NM: Which of your Mars images are you most proud of?

KV: I like the latest images most. They seem to come closer to reality, past and present. I enjoy especially the partial globe renderings like the one I made for National Geographic. The Candor Chasma is one the most beautiful I made, with sunbeams and the dusty atmosphere (see the image)

NM: Are you bored with imaging Mars yet?

KV: There’s still a lot of places I didn’t render. And the changing conditions of Mars are not yet all put in an image. Like the future of the planet. A terraformed Mars, but also the end of the solar system, when the sun is growing to a giant red star and Mars will be a red hot planet, instead of a red cold planet. So boring? No: it’s enjoying while virtual travelling on a distant planet.

NM: Looking ahead to the future now, is there a martian image you would love to make? Maybe a rendering of some surface feature you feel you haven’t done justice to yet?

KV: The Terragen program will be developed now regularly now that Matt Fairclough restarted the development. Once rocks can be rendered in the program I might start all over again with the low oblique views. And animating these landscapes will follow soon, after the software can visualise the details we miss now, giving a very realistic view on Mars. But competing with the photos of the multi million probes of the space agencies will remain a challenge.

NM: Leaving Mars behind… for now… which other bodies in the solar system would you like to give the Veenenbos treatment?

KV: Realistic rendering with Terragen demands elevation models. But there are not many really detailed ones. Mars has the best DEM’s. There is some of Venus and very low detailed of the Moon. We have to wait until the scientists decide to map all the planets with high detailed maps. In that way I could visualise the solar system with more realistic basic material. I read that the Messenger, that will be launched this July, will be equipped with the Mercury Laser Altimeter (MLA): So there’s hope… :) But not before it has arrived in 2008.. (find out more about the Messenger)

NM: Will you be using any of the data from the CASSINI probe to render the landscapes of any of Saturn’s fascinating moons?

KV: The Cassini Huygens also has a radar on board, so I hope these data is suitable to use and will be placed on the web soon after it’s sent to Earth. In general it takes a few months to a year before NASA puts the data on the web. But these data might be a challenge to put my teeth in. Titan might give us a look at an astonishing new world.

NM: And finally, is there anything extra-special we should be looking forward to appearing on your website, or in print, soon?

KV: I’ll put some 3D images and a new animation on my site. The animation will be of a better quality than the previous ones. For the 3D anaglyphs you’ll need the red/blue glasses. But looking at renderings in 3D is a new way of looking at Mars.

NM: Kees, thanks for talking to New Mars again!

Filed under: Interviews on May 25th, 2004