Sovremennye problemy distantsionnogo zondirovaniya Zemli iz kosmosa, 2026, V. 23, No. 2, pp. 401-411
Rendering of the lunar surface for autonomous optical navigation measurements
D.G. Pivovarchuk 1 , B.S. Zhukov 1 , I.A. Metelkov 1 , I.V. Polyanskiy 1 1 Space Research Institute RAS, Moscow, Russia
Accepted: 19.12.2025
DOI: 10.21046/2070-7401-2026-23-2-401-411
Rendering the lunar surface based on a topographic map is considered. This problem arises in the context of autonomous optical navigation during the spacecraft motion in orbit around the Moon and during the landing phase. The rendering algorithm is required for two tasks. The first task is the preliminary creation of a catalog of control points — landmarks on the lunar surface — that will be used for navigation. The second task arises directly during navigation: rendering the control points from the catalog for their matching with images captured by the camera. The proposed method is based on a ray tracing algorithm that allows both computing brightness of visible pixels in the surface image and identifying pixels shadowed by the surrounding terrain. The algorithm input data are camera position and orientation, and Sun position. To accurately compute brightness of the rendered points, a surface reflection model is specified. For lunar navigation tasks, the Hapke model or the Lommel–Seeliger model is usually employed. The quality of surface rendering produced by the proposed algorithm is verified using high resolution real images of the Moon. A correlation analysis between real images and rendered images is carried out to assess the reliability of control points detection for solving the navigation problem.
Keywords: Moon, navigation, moon landing, optical measurements, topographic map, control points, ray tracing, rendering
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