The VAMORCAD project – Validation of Asteroid Models by Occultation Results by means of CAD

The combination of 3D models of asteroids obtained from inverted rotation light curves with the measured times of disappearance and reappearance from stellar occultations is realized with a new ongoing project called VAMORCAD (Validation of Asteroid Models by Occultation Results by means of CAD – a Computer Aided Design program).
Graphical data (3D models and images of chords) from two different databases (DAMIT and Occult4) are read into a commercial CAD program and positioned and edited in relation to each other to scale. In the project the occultations data are centered and positioned to the center of asteroid model.
The result is a graphical representation of the model asteroid, in relation to all the occultation measured on it, in order to get a first impression of the spatial distribution of observation.
Furthermore, automated calculations (e.g. shortest distances of the measurements to the model) as well as statistical evaluations are possible via a macro programming language embedded in the CAD program. These results can be used to optimize or adjust the size as well as the shape of the asteroid model.