"I talked to the engineers who specialize in computer vision, and we came up with the design for the fiducials [on Curiosity]," Leger said. "We wanted something that would be easy for either a computer program or a person to accurately pick the center of. Having that intersection in the middle makes it easier for a person -- they can zoom in on the image and click exactly on that intersection -- and [the design] also makes it easy for a computer, because it can compute the center of a circle."The circular markings are a staple of engineering that can serve two parallel purposes, Leger said: to calibrate cameras and to calibrate various mechanisms on the rover. They're a common feature in high-tech photography and robotics here on Earth, but the use of fiducials on extraterrestrial robots is relatively new. The technique started informally on the Mars Exploration Rover mission, which landed Spirit and Opportunity on the Red Planet's surface in 2004.<br />http://www.huffington!
post.com/2012/08/30/mars-rover-curiosity-fiducials_n_1844679.html
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