More Scan Stitching

I just spent a lot of time getting together various bones. Below is a sample image (click to enlarge). I put together the humerus, femur, a couple "scutes," a tooth and started on what we have of the skull. The skull is in five different pieces. It is currently cleaned up but just needs to be put together. After the skull and jaw are together, it's nothing but vertebrae left for the scan stitching.

I was able to vastly improve my workflow with the help of a "Global Registration" option in Geomagic, which allows me not only to speed up the process of stitching, but also helps create more accurate piecing, since it is not done by the human eye. As long as the pieces are in close approximate positions (done manually), the algorithm is able to detect the topology and adjust itself for a more perfect fit.

Despite this discovery, it took a little bit of playing and experimenting to figure out how it works. There were lots of little strange bugs that arose when using the program that slowed down my newfound speed, but each day I am getting better at this.

I've also started reading my que of papers on Crocodylians by Christopher Brochu. This week is: "Crocodylian Snouts in Space and Time: Phylogenetic Approaches Toward Adaptive Radiation" (2001). This will be helpful when reconstructing the missing snout of our Thoracosaurus.

I also spent time on looking up reference imagery of marine forests, mangrove swamps, etc. to influence the revision of my environmental plan. Stay tuned for some concept art on that, as well as some beginnings of possible storyboards of the animation.