{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,25]],"date-time":"2026-06-25T11:33:46Z","timestamp":1782387226583,"version":"3.54.5"},"reference-count":50,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"23","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2023,12,3]],"date-time":"2023-12-03T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1701561600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100000780","name":"European Union","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["813644"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["813644"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100000780","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Sensors"],"abstract":"<jats:p>The Celestial Object Rendering TOol (CORTO) offers a powerful solution for generating synthetic images of celestial bodies, catering to the needs of space mission design, algorithm development, and validation. Through rendering, noise modeling, hardware-in-the-loop testing, and post-processing functionalities, CORTO creates realistic scenarios. It offers a versatile and comprehensive solution for generating synthetic images of celestial bodies, aiding the development and validation of image processing and navigation algorithms for space missions. This work illustrates its functionalities in detail for the first time. The importance of a robust validation pipeline to test the tool\u2019s accuracy against real mission images using metrics like normalized cross-correlation and structural similarity is also illustrated. CORTO is a valuable asset for advancing space exploration and navigation algorithm development and has already proven effective in various projects, including CubeSat design, lunar missions, and deep learning applications. While the tool currently covers a range of celestial body simulations, mainly focused on minor bodies and the Moon, future enhancements could broaden its capabilities to encompass additional planetary phenomena and environments.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/s23239595","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,12,4]],"date-time":"2023-12-04T05:28:21Z","timestamp":1701667701000},"page":"9595","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":10,"title":["CORTO: The Celestial Object Rendering TOol at DART Lab"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"23","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-1286-2594","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Mattia","family":"Pugliatti","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Aerospace Science and Technology, Politecnico di Milano, 20156 Milan, Italy"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-2257-6257","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Carmine","family":"Buonagura","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Aerospace Science and Technology, Politecnico di Milano, 20156 Milan, Italy"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-5369-6887","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Francesco","family":"Topputo","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Aerospace Science and Technology, Politecnico di Milano, 20156 Milan, Italy"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,12,3]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"491","DOI":"10.1016\/S0094-5765(02)00098-X","article-title":"The NEAR shoemaker mission to asteroid 433 eros","volume":"51","author":"Prockter","year":"2002","journal-title":"Acta Astronaut."},{"key":"ref_2","first-page":"1","article-title":"Hayabusa sample return mission","volume":"1","author":"Yoshikawa","year":"2015","journal-title":"Asteroids IV"},{"key":"ref_3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.1007\/s11214-006-9140-8","article-title":"The Rosetta mission: Flying towards the origin of the solar system","volume":"128","author":"Glassmeier","year":"2007","journal-title":"Space Sci. 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