Celebrating Dinosaur Isle: Jehol-Wealden International Conference. 2013

Last week saw the first ever ‘Celebrating Dinosaur Isle: Jehol-Wealden International Conference’ at the National Oceanography Centre (NOCs), Southampton, UK and hosted by the University of Southampton Ocean and Earth Sciences and the Confucius Institute. There were around 90 delegates for the talks and 40 for the field trip, including palaeontologists from all over the UK, Europe, China and the USA. As a venue NOCs is hard to beat as the building sits on the dock front and from the cafe are excellent views down Southampton Water, across the Solent to the Isle of Wight in the distance and has superb facilities. A room was dedicated to displays and vendors and next door was the lecture theatre, with lunch and refreshments served on the wide landing right outside the two, the proximity of which was useful as it maximised the time spent with other delegates. 

The exhibit room at the conference.

As the title suggests, the whole meeting concentrated on the Early Cretaceous of the Jehol of China and the Wealden of Europe.  The day kicked off with an introduction by conference organiser Gareth Dyke of the University of Southampton, followed by a brief welcome by Mark Cranshaw of the Confucius Institute. The first talk was John Radley on the Geological Conservation Review and featured the work of Percival Allen on the Wealden climate, work that is still relevant today. In an entertaining talk Hugh Torrens than discussed the ‘first dinosaur’ as recognised by Richard Owen and discovered on the Isle of Wight. In the next room was the specimen itself, kindly lent by the National History Museum, and naturally it attracted a lot of attention. Jeff Liston then talked about the legalities of fossil collecting in China, where there are strict rules about moving fossils across even provincial boundaries. Pascal Godefroit was unable to attend but Mark Witton finished the first session with a typically excellent talk on Jurassic pterosaurs and their importance in understanding the evolution of Early Cretaceous forms.

After coffee Paul Barrett delivered a comprehensive and well-illustrated review of dinosaurs from the Jehol Biota. He was followed by Darren Naish who has been working on the Eotyrannus monograph and whose description of the specimen was very thorough, providing lots of information along with great images of the fossil. Dave Martill discussed the dentition of the pterosaurs Istiodactylus and Longchengpterus, again with excellent hi-res photos of the specimens which looked spectacular on NOCs’ excellent projector system. Unfortunately M. Matsukawa was also unable to attend the meeting but Martin Lockley delivered his talk in his place, no easy task considering the complexity of recreating ancient food webs and trophic cascades.

Lunch gave everyone a chance to really study the exhibits in the room next door to the lecture theatre. Apart from the thrill of seeing the ‘first dinosaur’ there were parts of a Polacanthus on display, with a very impressive ilium and sections of the sacral shield, as well as various vertebrae and parts of the pectoral girdle and limbs. A team from Dinosaur Isle had various specimens on show, including a complete Iguanodon mandible and some large Baryonyx teeth. The model of Microraptor featured in Dyle et al’s Nature paper was present along its balsa wood counterpart, more on that later. The chaps from Lyme Regis had fetched over a selection of fossils for sale and The Bristol Dinosaur Project also had a display on their local dinosaur, Thecodontosaurus antiquus.

The first of the afternoon sessions started with Zihui Zhang from Beijing discussing an enantiornithine bird skull and its implication for other enantiornithines. A small enantiornithine was also the subject of Dongyu Hu’s (Shenyang) talk, and he was followed by Colin Palmer who gave an excellent talk on the work that went into the Microraptor paper mentioned earlier. Colin’s talk finished with video of the balsa model  of Microraptor being flown, and demonstrating the flightpath predicted by computer simulations was pretty accurate. Next up was Mike Howgate, who was expounding his view that Microraptor was in fact a ‘archaeopterygid’ bird and Eoraptor was a possible bird ancestor. Mark Young then talked about the “Shanklin Shocker”, a large metriorhynchid with teeth similar to may extant fish species such as piraña in that when the jaw is closed they give a shearing motion, very effective for tearing lumps of flesh off prey. The images of the damage a cookie-cutter shark can do to a human leg could put a person off paddling for life.

The final session started with my own review of dinosaur ichnology on the Isle of Wight, and this was followed by Martin Lockley (who needs no introduction to vertebrate ichnologists) who showed some of the work being done in China at the moment, including some of the quite astonishing museums being built to house collections and cover track sites, including one shaped like a huge tridactyl print. Steve Sweetmen then talked about his fascinating work on Wealden microvertebrate assemblages, and also showed a spectacular print from Cowlease Chine, in-situ in the cliff, made in mudstone and infilled with sandstone. Pam Gill closed the session with a comprehensive review of Wealden-Jehol mammals.

The evening was spent in the Red Lion in Southampton, a 12^th century pub where delegates were entertained by Luke Muscutt and friends. Luke is a PhD student at the university and a brilliant musician. Needless to say, a good time was had by all and much discussion was had, including an impromptu ichthyosaur mini-conference in the back room.

Walking through the upper Wessex and Vectis formations, first stop on the field trip.

Next morning the field trip started out from the Red Jet terminal in Southampton and were soon heading across the Solent to East Cowes on the Isle of Wight, where everyone boarded a bus and headed to Sandown, home of Dinosaur Isle. The first stop was the beach at Yaverland, where under the guidance of expert Trevor Price delegates inspected the uppermost section of the Wessex Fm and the whole of the Vectis Fm, both of which are exposed in this small but very productive stretch of coast. The beach conditions meant the footprint layers were covered by sand, but everyone could search for fossils in the shingle and along the cliffs. Next up the trip visited the Wessex-Vectis junction and then spent some time examining the section, including the footprint-bearing beds of the Shepherd’s Chine Member, eventually making its way towards to Lower Greensand and its beautifully preserved shelly fossils. I’m pleased to say dinosaur bone was found!

Heading towards Hanover Point.

After an introduction by Jeremy Lockwood a superb lunch was had at Dinosaur Isle, where the lab was open and local collectors were present with their finds and palaeontologist Steve Hutt was present to discuss the collection. This included new Iguanodon material from Nick Chase (who donates to the museum), a piece of thyreophoran armour and some quite incredible Baryonyx material representing at least two animals; let us hope these important specimens not lost to science.

The multicoloured sands of Alum Bay. My Nan had a small glass tube of these on her
sideboard, but this was the first time I'd seen them first hand.

Next on the itinerary was a visit to Hanover Point and Brook Bay on the west coast of the island, led by Steve Hutt, Penny Newbery and Trevor Price. There delegates inspected the dinosaur footcasts that litter the beach on this part of the coast and which were particularly abundant given the time year (I’m pleased to say) and spent time prospecting in the shingle for fossils. More bone was found. Following pickup by the bus, everyone was taken to the Needles Park where many brave souls rode the chair lift to the beach to look at the famous Alum coloured sands, and upon re-ascent were treated to a fine buffet and drinks. We took the Red Jet back to Southampton around 9.15pm and the conference ended.

The chairlift down to the beach at Alum Bay. Gulp.

This meeting was a resounding success. The talks were all fascinating (I’m excluding mine here, others can be the judge of that), the venue and organisation spot on, as was the field trip. It was great to see so many Early Cretaceous workers in one space, and personally I’m hoping a lot will come out of the discussions had during the coffee breaks, in the pub and on the field trip. Having so many experts on the field trip was a real treat, and I personally learnt much for their generous and patient instruction despite having spent many years visiting some of these sites. Thanks are due to Gareth Dyke for organising the conference and Jessica Lawrence who assisted, as well as Dinosaur Isle and The Needles Park for their hospitality.

I am sure I join many others in hoping this conference will be repeated in years to come.

Jehol-Wealden Conference schedule

The schedule for the upcoming Celebrating Dinosaur Isle: Jehol-Wealden Conference at the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton is now available, and is posted below (get a pdf version here). The conference consists of a full programme of international speakers on the 20th September and a very busy field trip (including two site visits) to the Isle of Wight on the 21st September. This will be an essential meeting for anyone working on or interested in Early Cretaceous research, and will provide a great networking opportunity. Booking via the conference web page at the University of Southampton web site.

Jehol-Wealden Conference Second Circular

The second circular for Celebrating Dinosaur Island: Jehol-Wealden international conference has been released. With a programme of international speakers and a trip to the Isle of Wight included it's going to be an exciting chance to get together with researchers working on Early Cretaceous palaeontology from all over the world at the outstanding University of Southampton facility at the National Oceanography Centre, located on the quay beside Southampton Water.

Booking details here: http://store.southampton.ac.uk/browse/extra_info.asp?compid=1&modid=2&prodid=144&deptid=46&catid=67

Triceratops 3D update

After another comment from Jamie Headden from essential palaeontology blog The Bite Stuff, I made a couple more alterations to the Triceratops sculpt, focussing on the rostral region. Here's the final mesh, and that's it (until I change it again).

Triceratops horridus. Click to embiggen.

Building a dinosaur: the finished Triceratops sculpt

It's been a while coming, but the Triceratops sculpt is finally finished. At this advanced stage the fine detailing is added to the mesh as well as any adjustments that may be needed to  morphology.

Central to this stage of the process is gathering reference; in fact this task runs through every stage during the creation process. This involves looking for papers on integument, lesions on the skin as well as gathering references on colour and skin texture. Using extant phyogenetic bracketing (EPB) we can infer certain things about how a Triceratops might have looked; for instance we know birds have very bright colouration and the males often have structures designed for display, so we can consider whether ceratopsians used their head ornamentation for only for display or perhaps defence or species recognition too. We have fossil impressions of chasmosaurine skin so we have a reasonable idea how parts of the skin of Triceratops looked in terms of topology and we can look at extant animals and observe their colouration and how it relates to their ecology. One tool I've started using a fair amount to gather reference is Pinterest, which allows me to 'pin' images from the web to virtual boards, and works both in the browser on my desktop and in a standalone app on the iPad and iPhone. Using this tool it's possible to gather good reference quickly and easily, and store it all at one location that is accessible online.

Although we're not actually texturing this model at this stage, to my mind it's essential to consider integument when detailing a sculpt as it may well affect some of the decisions you make when adding detail will be reflected if you decide to texture a model.

I did all the detailing in zBrush, as this allows the artist to work at high resolution and at speed. I tend to create my own alphas as this gives me more control, but the built-in alphas are usable and a Google search will turn up many sources of free alphas to download. These can be resized to give different sized brushes and for the scales of Triceratops I created this alpha:

Ceratopsian scales. Oh yes.

I traced some scales from a reference image of ornithischian skin and blurred the image slightly to avoid jagged edges on the geometry. As scale size is not uniform over the body on either extant or extinct animals the ability to adjust the draw size gives flexibility when adding scales.

Next I added wrinkles, scars and detail to the horns and claws. I turn off symmetry on whatever brush I'm using for the final part of this to ensure variation which adds visual interest. I roughen up the skin here and there, add a few lumpy bits and other marks as this Triceratops is an older animal that bears the scars from it's years living in the Late Cretaceous world.

Detail of the hoary head.

Finally, I seek the comments of palaeontologists and other illustrators and make any suggested amendments. This is an important stage; it's very easy to get too close to your work sometimes, and you can end up making errors that are, when pointed out, embarrassingly obvious. Moreover, getting someone with experience to critique your work means you will have the most subtle of subtle changes pointed out to you, and this is a great opportunity to learn. It will help you immensely with the interpretation of the reference material used when creating artwork in the future.

So that's it! I'm now looking to get a 3D print made of the model, and I will texture and pose it of course, but that's it for the time being. I will hopefully get around to animating it at some point too.

Big thanks to all those who have commented during the process and especially to Scott Hartman for his invaluable input.

Jehol-Wealden International Conference 1st Circular

The first circular for Celebrating Dinosaur Island: Jehol-Wealden International Conference is now available for download here. For further information and proposals for presentations and posters contact: gareth.dyke@soton.ac.uk

I hope to see you there!

A photogrammetry primer for palaeontologists

One of the big advantages of photogrammetry is the ability to gather high-quality data quickly and easily. The tools are available to anyone and are often free, open-source or reasonably cheap. As mentioned in the previous post the work flow can be summed up as follows:

1. Take overlapping photographs.
2. Load into photogrammetry application.
3. Generate a point cloud (the software looks for points on the various photos and these are assigned a point in 3D virtual space).
4. Generate mesh and texture (if required).
5. Output, analyse and share.

The quickest way to start is using an online photogrammetry service. The best I have come across is Autodesk's 123D Catch, which is an easy and quick way to get started and produces pretty good results. You can use 123D Catch on your smartphone or tablet and as an internet service you need no other software to generate meshes and the app takes care of steps 2-4 in the workflow above. The app will generate .obj files which are read by every major 3D package including the excellent MeshLab, which I suggest you download (it's free) if you are thinking of incorporating photogrammetry into your own palaeontological skill set as it's useful for reviewing meshes.

Good though 123D Catch and similar online packages are, if you're serious about photogrammetry then  eventually you'll want to get dedicated software. The application I favour is called Agisoft Photoscan which comes in two flavours, Standard and Professional. I use the standard version and this is more than adequate for my needs plus is cheaper (the Standard version costs $179 and the Pro version is $3499 - ouch!), which counts as I am self-underfunded. An alternative is Peter Falkingham's excellent VisualSFM which is free but doesn't generate meshes, only point clouds. I say 'only', but the point cloud data is really the important bit and this is the basis for any analysis that might be performed on the data. However, the artist part of me likes to see images that look more solid so I prefer to generate meshes and for outreach and other purposes a mesh is desirable.

So here's a run through the workflow mentioned above, that should be enough if you wish to get started using photogrammetry.

1) Take overlapping photographs.

It's quite possible to generate usable 3D data by taking two overlapping photographs. However, the more data the better so I take a sequence of images, normally about nine but this can be far more according to the size and detail of the subject. There are some ground rules when taking images for photogrammetry: photos must overlap by no less than 60%, you must keep the camera a consistent distance for each shot, and you must keep the camera perpendicular to the subject.  As an example, for a single footprint you might take 3 shots with 60% overlap at the first pass with the camera in it's normal orientation, go back to your original and rotate the camera -90 degrees and take 3 more, rotate the camera 180 degrees and take the next sequence.

Eubrontes footprint from Warner Valley, Utah recorded using ye olde traditional digital photograph.

Here's a sequence I took of the same footprint ready for loading into Photoscan:

Sequence of images of the print.

2) Load into a photogrammetry application and 3) Generate a point cloud. 4) Generate mesh and texture.

Photoscan has a step-by-step approach to building meshes that is very easy to use. You load your images, the software then aligns them, generates a point cloud, then a mesh and finally a texture if desired.

This is a point cloud of the print, seen from above and generated from the image sequence above.

The same print, with mesh generated from the point cloud data and with a texture applied.

And that's it! The mesh can now be saved as any number of file types for loading into other programs for further analysis, and shared via email or cloud services with colleagues across the globe. If desired,  a 3D printer could be used to create a physical copy of the mesh, essentially returning the subject to the physical realm from the digital.

Uses for meshes:
Clockwise from top left: untextured mesh with adjustable lighting,
full textured mesh, colour elevation and contour generation,
anaglyphic stereo.

I hope this will encourage you to explore the technique of photogrammetry, and incorporate the method into your research workflow if applicable. This post has really only scratched the surface of what is possible with photogrammetry and associated techniques, such as recording objects in the round (see movie of cast below) and the methods used in processing to get really good results; these are subjects for a book rather than a blog!

If you do want to learn more and are heading to the SVP in Los Angeles this year then I highly recommend the workshop that Neffra Matthews and Brent Breithaupt are hosting during the meeting. They are two pioneers of the technique in the context of palaeontology and are excellent communicators to boot and there is no-one better to learn from.

Photogrammetry workflow. Click to embiggen.

Now go and get started!

Ref:
Pond, S., et al.,The ichnologists guide to 3D models: from the field to the cloud. DigitalFossil Berlin 2012 Abstracts of Presentations. Available at: http://www.naturkundemuseum-berlin.de/forschung/tagungen/digitalfossil-berlin-2012/home/abstracts-of-presentations/#c24993