The MGS spacecraft has been sending back surface height data of Mars since March 1999. I downloaded all this data, approximately 600 million readings, and wrote software to process it.

As the MGS satellite orbits Mars it fires a laser every 330m to measure the height of the ground below. This means that in the direction of the orbit the resolution is 330m but in between the orbits the gaps vary between a few meters to a few kilometers. The data processing software I wrote uses a linear interpolation algorithm to fill in the gaps. Datasets created at higher resolutions require more interpolation because the gaps between the orbits are larger.

The MOLA data has a vertical accuracy of 5m and a horizontal spatial accuracy of 100m.

This mercator projection image shows the path of the MGS satellite over the planet. The density of data is at its lowest at the equator and at its highest near the poles. There are black bands at the top and bottom of the image because the MGS satellite rarely passing above 87 degrees latitude.

There is some 'bad data' that can lead to lines on images/animations created from the MOLA data.

I can produce heightfield datasets in 16 bit RAW binary, grescale or PGM formats with a size of up to 10,000x10,000.

Here is a screenshot of my MOLA data processing software.