Display 3D Color NASA Calipso Satellite Model

The NASA Calipso model is converted here to wavefront obj format and displayed using trisurf and materials.

It took me a while to figure out how to use matlabs mesh and graphics to display a 3D model from NASA. Not all the NASA models are in the same format, so this technique won't work on them all. But it works for the particular sort of FBX file that has Phong Shading (Ka, Kd, Ks) defined for individual components of the facet/vertex arrays. I'm sharing it as a tool for educators to create 'pretty' and informative graphics from the shared repository of satellite, rover, lander, terrain, and radio dish library of 3D models published by NASA. Have fun! :-)

The Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO) satellite measures the properties of clouds and atmospheric aerosols. It helps weather and climate modelers understand how aerosols and cloud droplets effect Earth's radiation budget, weather, climate, and air quality.

Source for the model: https://nasa3d.arc.nasa.gov/detail/calipso
This published model from NASA is in FBX format. It is converted to OBJ Wavefront format using FBX Converter from Autodesk (2013) available here: https://www.autodesk.com/developer-network/platform-technologies/fbx-converter-archives