Tracks from the Triassic: Isochirotherium in 3D

I spent a fruitful morning in the ichnology collections at Manchester Museum last week, where I had gone to look at some examples of invertebrate trace fossils that can be found in the local area and which might be a basis for future research. I was also looking at local vertebrate footprints from the Triassic and whilst there took the opportunity to photograph some of dinosaur footprints housed in the collection.

Here is a 360-degree rotation of a particularly fine print of Isochirotherium lomasi, an enigmatic archosaur known only from its tracks and recorded using photogrammetry during a previous visit. The museum has a fine collection of these prints and this particular one is on public display in the fossil gallery and comes from a site on the Wirral in north-west England, an area which has produced many tracks over the years. This is a left print as the 'thumb' is actually the outermost digit of the pes (or manus), and is very similar to the ichnogenus Chirotheruim, a fact that led no less an anatomist than Richard Owen to conclude the thumb was digit I and thus Chirotherium walked cross-legged, and it took until 1925 until Wilfred Soergel established that this 'thumb' was indeed the outer digit.

Many thanks to David Gelsthorpe, Curator of Earth Science Collections (@paleomanchester) and Kate for their invaluable help whilst I was there; they made me feel very welcome and I look forward to going back. More goodness from the excellent Manchester Museum collections to come.

Confuciusornis - gathering 3D data from a museum exhibit

A couple of weeks ago I took a trip up to Manchester Museum to peruse the excellent fossil gallery and test out my new camera (a Fuji x10). Whilst there my eye was caught by a rather fine fossil of the Lower Cretaceous bird Confuciusornis sanctus, from the Jianshangou Bed of the Yixian Formation (the label in the cabinet gives the location as the Chaomidianzi Formation but according to Wikipedia[!] this is a synonym for the Jianshangou Bed and has fallen out of use; the ref citied in the wiki is behind a paywall and so I can't access it to check), West Laioning Province, China. I thought it might be worth trying to gather 3D data from the fossil using the technique of photogrammetry. Although the specimen is behind glass I got good data, and here are the results.

The first image is a conventional photograph taken from directly in front of the fossil. I've adjusted the levels in the image to bring out the detail. Note the rather wonderful feather impressions of the wings and the fuzz on the neck.

This is the 3D data generated from the photographs taken for reconstruction using photogrammetry. There were 38 images in all, and these were combined to generate the above mesh. The bones are clearly visible, and the feathers of the left (our right, we're looking at the front of the bird) wing are also visible. The rectilinear features visible on this mesh are possibly artefacts of the alignment of the photos, perhaps due to subtle changes in the way each photo was lit or having the glass in-between the camera and the subject. However, I'd have to check this - oh for the luxury of on-site processing!

Above is an unadjusted render of the final textured mesh. Below is a close-up of the final mesh, with the camera positioned at a jaunty angle which shows off the quality of the model. This is lit with a single omni light with ambient occlusion active.

The quality of the mesh is well displayed in this image, and enables us to examine the fossil from all angles and also by loading the model into a viewer we can take a high-quality 3D model of this fossil anywhere we can take our laptops, iPads or smartphones. This is an effective way of accessing fossils, gathering usable data which is readily available at any time, and creating a record of the specimen which is useful for research.

Portrait of a T. rex, or why I love Stan.

It's strange how you can develop an attachment to an animal that lived on another continent 65 million years ago, but I've done just that with a Tyrannosaurus rex called Stan.

Stan seen from head-on.

Illustration © Stuart Pond. 2011. Stan is a trademark of the Black Hills Institute.

Some years ago palaeontologist Dr. Phil Manning arrived at Manchester Museum and set about re-invigorating the fossil galleries. The centrepiece at that time was a Tenontosaurus skeleton which had seen better days; it was in need of a a bit of t.l.c. and had some dodgy restoration on it, so off to the lab it went. With characteristic vision and enthusiasm Phil decided to replace the old ornithopod with something altogether more dramatic, a full-size Tyrannosaurus rex in a controversial running pose. So a cast of Stan, a nearly complete T. rex from South Dakota was installed into the fossil galleries, posed so when you round the corner into the hall the beast looks like he's about to run you down (we assume Stan is a 'he' as he is the gracile form of the species, and with T. rex the robust morphotype is considered the female); A T. rex at full-tilt. Over the years Mrs Stu and I have often gone up to the museum to see Stan, to gain inspiration in the long months between actually getting out into the field, and dreaming of visiting the Hell Creek where he was found to see for ourselves this great fossil locality.

The Black Hills Institute, Hill City, South Dakota.

Stan was named after Stan Sacrison, an electrician and long-standing collector who found him in S.D. in 1987. Although he wasn't excavated until 1992, Stan turned out to be the most complete male T. rex ever found. The original fossil now resides with the Black Hills Institute (who found Sue, now located in The Field Museum, Chicago after a traumatic and protracted legal battle now famous in the annals of palaeontology), located in Hill City, S.D. As we were in the area last year after spending a week in the field in the Hell Creek we had to make the pilgrimage to see the original fossil from which the Manchester cast was taken. Sure enough, we rocked up in Hill City one bright sunny July morning and proceeded to the BHI museum. To see Stan in the, er, flesh was a surprisingly emotional experience; it was like meeting a famous artist or musician who you'd long admired and found inspirational. We spent a very happy couple of hours in the BHI's small but perfectly formed museum, carefully studying all the exhibits we had travelled so far to see, but paying special attention to the star of the show, the mighty Stan.

The Tenontosaurus that once held pride of place in the fossil

gallery at Manchester Museum. Note no Deinonychus present.

So at the top of the post is an illustration of Stan by myself. It's taken from a photo of his skull which I took whilst at the museum, and was created entirely in Adobe Illustrator, the vector graphic programme. This is obviously a simplified image, really meant to try to communicate the dramatic experience of standing eye-to-eye with that most iconic of dinosaurs, T. rex.

If you're any where near Hill City I would highly recommend a visit to the Black Hills Institute to visit Stan. In the meantime, we'll be off to Manchester any day now to see him dominating the fossil hall, bearing down on the awestruck visitors come to gaze at his mighty self.

Please note that Stan is a trademark of the Black Hills Institute.