Digital morphology : a National Science Foundation digital library at the University of Texas at Austin

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Summary

The Digital Morphology library is a dynamic archive of information on digital morphology and high-resolution X-ray computed tomography of biological specimens. Browse through the site and see spect...

The Digital Morphology library is a dynamic archive of information on digital morphology and high-resolution X-ray computed tomography of biological specimens. Browse through the site and see spectacular imagery and animations and details on the morphology of many representatives of the Earth's biota.Digital Morphology, part of the National Science Foundation Digital Libraries Initiative, develops and serves unique 2D and 3D visualizations of the internal and external structure of living and extinct vertebrates, and a growing number of 'invertebrates'. The Digital Morphology library contains nearly a terabyte of imagery of natural history specimens that are important to education and central to ongoing cutting-edge research efforts. The information core for the Digital Morphology library is generated using a state-of-the-art high-resolution X-ray computed tomographic (X-ray CT) scanner. The Digital Morphology site currently presents: QuickTime animations of complete stacks of serial CT sections; animated 3D volumetric movies of complete specimens; stereolithography (STL) files of 3D objects that can be viewed interactively and rapidly prototyped into scalable physical 3D objects that can be handled and studied as if they were the original specimens; informative introductions to the scanned organisms, often written by world authorities; pertinent bibliographic information on each specimen; useful links; and a course resource for our 'Digital Methods for Paleontology' course, in which students learn how to generate all of the types of imagery displayed on the Digital Morphology site.

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