Dear morphometricians, I am looking for maths/graphics software (and/or collaborators) to enable 'Aesthetic Evolutionary Design' (the idea in Dawkins' 'Blind Watchmaker') to create parametric surface models of vertebrae as bilaterally symmetric generalized tori, and investigate ways of fitting such models automatically to point-cloud or mesh data. The purpose is to have a method for objective description of snake vertebrae for palaeontology [prior to applying GM or other analyses], though other applications can be anticipated.
The closest I've seen to this approach in the literature is Lewis, M. & R. Parent. 2000. An implicit surface prototype for evolving human figure geometry. Technical Report OSU-ACCAD-11/00-TR2. http://accad.osu.edu/~mlewis/AED/Figures/human.pdf Any suggestions welcome, John ----------------------------------------------- Dr John D. Scanlon, FCD Palaeontologist, Riversleigh Fossil Centre, Outback at Isa 19 Marian Street / PO Box 1094 Mount Isa QLD 4825 AUSTRALIA Ph: 07 4749 1555 Fax: 07 4743 6296 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://tinyurl.com/f2rby -- Replies will be sent to the list. For more information visit http://www.morphometrics.org
