Hello and welcome
to the Smiley Lab
Introduction to Digital
Preparation. My name
is Anne Kort and I'm the
graduate student who developed
these tutorials
for working with
digital 3D data of fossils.
>> Although many
of the examples we
will use are of fossils,
these tutorials
should apply to
any 3D data of interest.
This video series is
designed so that you
can skip to the topics
you're interested in.
However, if you
are a beginner,
I would recommend viewing
the videos in order.
First, I would like
to thank many of
the organizations and
people who helped
make these
tutorials possible.
Many of the specimens
you will see examples of
today are from either
the John Day Fossil Beds
National Monument,
the Burke Museum,
the Natural History
Museum of Utah,
and the Indiana University
Zooarchaeology Lab.  Scanning
was performed at
Friday Harbor Labs
and funding was provided by
the NSF in a grant to
Tara Smiley. 
>> Digital preparation is the process of
taking scans of
physical specimens
and converting
them into 3D
digital models.
There are many
different uses
for virtual fossils,
such as taking
complex measurements,
3D printing,
fossil reconstruction,
computer simulations,
and sharing
specimens digitally,
In the Smiley lab,
our main goal for
our fossil specimens
are taking these
complex measurements.
>> By taking
complex measurements
such as OPC,
which tells us the
different orientations
of the surface of
the tooth or things like
total volume or tooth area
across a tooth row,
we can characterize
the diet of
these fossil rodents and
understand how they
evolved through time.
Another great use of
3D digital models is
creating 3D prints.
These are generally
cheap to make,
and so they can be a useful
way to reproduce rare
specimens for education
and outreach.
The example you see
here is a 3D print
of a fossil beavers
skull at two times size.
Another use would be doing
fossil reconstruction.
So here on the left,
you can see the
original humerus that
was found from a fossil
mammal carnivore.
And on the right
you can see
a reconstructed version of
the humerus based
on related species.
There are
many different computer
modeling techniques
that can be done with
3D digital fossils.
>> This example you see
is called finite
element analysis,
essentially
measuring the stress
when these two different
skulls bite down.
Comparing the
Thylacoleo,
the marsupial lion on
the left and modern
African lion
on the right.
>> Possibly the
most important
development and use for
3D data is these online
3D data repositories.
This allows not only
researchers who cannot
otherwise access
museum specimens to see
more assessments than
they ever could before.
>> But it also
allows us to share
these valuable specimens
with the public.
>> The three
examples I have
shown here are
some of these.
>> Morphosource
is specific to
biology and has
fossils as well.
>> So it's very much
researcher facing, whereas
Sketchfab and Thingiverse
have a wide array
of objects on them,
Definitely not just
fossils or bones,
and they face much more
directly to the public.
So an example you see
on the right there is
the Field Museum's Sue
the T-Rex on Sketchfab.
The overall
workflow for using
3D digital data is
first to scan the data,
next to process it,
and finally to perform
the analysis or do
the use with it.
>> And scanning
and processing
steps will basically
depend on what
your ultimate goal
is with the 3D data.
>> I will be walking
through these
in this video series.
