Hi Henry, do you mean using a flat-bed scanner to take pics of 3D structures? I've done that on marmot hemimandibles (papers with Nagorsen in my webpage). You'll find the test of its accuracy here: http://www.italian-journal-of-mammalogy.it/article/view/10993 It's one of the datasets in the study. Compared to 3D data, results were pretty good and similar (only slightly worse) to those obtained by taking pictures. However, this will be specific to the data and the study hypothesis.
The 3D and 2D landmarks on photos of hemimandibles are provided as suppl. info. Those of the scanned images are not but, as I said, they're very similar to the photos. Anyway, I am happy to share those too. Just need a spare moment to look for the data. I was about to do this again myself on carabids but gave up as the curator who gave me the specimens was not too happy about it. For a macroevolutionary comparison, where differences are large, I suspect the error may be relatively small. With very small specimens there may be problems with resolution and with big ones there could be issues with depth and, at least in carabids, with big ones their curvature (e.g., pronotum and head relative to the abdomen) does not make them ideal. Curiously, my experience is that, at least with cheap scanners, the old ones are better. They have more depth of field. I am pretty sure that other people have done similar 'experiments'. Good luck with your project. Cheers Andrea On 03/02/2015, henry wallace <[email protected]> wrote: > I am contemplating a project involving small insects. Data would be pixel > areas or distances of head, thorax, abdomen. 2D measurements. Large > numbers of specimens required. > > With appendages removed, the insects would be mounted on a flat surface, > such as poster board or paper, which is then scanned using a desktop > scanner (photo-scanner). Dozens could be scanned at single time and the > resulting images can be cropped for data gathering. > > Was just wanting initial reactions and/or recommendations on the approach. > > H. > > -- > MORPHMET may be accessed via its webpage at http://www.morphometrics.org > > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > -- NO DOCX, XLSX AND PPTX, PLEASE!!! COAUTHORS AND CONTRIBUTORS, PLEASE, FOR SHARING FILES, CONVERT THEM IN DOC, XLS (UNLESS LONGER THAN 256 COLUMNS) AND PPT Dr. Andrea Cardini Researcher in Animal Biology Dipartimento di Scienze Chimiche e Geologiche, Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia, l.go S. Eufemia 19, 41121 Modena, Italy Adjunct Associate Professor Centre for Forensic Science , The University of Western Australia 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley WA 6009, Australia E-mail address: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] Webpage: http://sites.google.com/site/hymsfme/drandreacardini and: http://www.dscg.unimore.it/site/home/ricerca/aree-di-ricerca/evolution-taxonomy-and-forensics.html Datasets: http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/archive/cerco_lt_2007/overview.cfm#metadata Editorial board for: Zoomorphology: http://www.springer.com/life+sciences/animal+sciences/journal/435 Journal of Zoological Systematics and Evolutionary Research: http://www.wiley.com/bw/journal.asp?ref=0947-5745&site=1 Hystrix, the Italian Journal of Mammalogy: http://www.italian-journal-of-mammalogy.it/ -- MORPHMET may be accessed via its webpage at http://www.morphometrics.org To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected].
