Idaho Virtualization Laboratory

Summary

In addition to the ongoing need for fieldwork by the North American Ape Project (NAAP), there is clearly a great deal of work to be done towards the documentation, evaluation and dissemination of the evidence at hand. Foremost, is the systematic documentation and evaluation of the footprint evidence. There now exists a rather singular opportunity to create an archive of the footprint casts that have been assembled in my lab at ISU, given the establishment of the Idaho Virtualization Lab (IVL). Using state-of-the-art 3D scanning technologies a high resolution virtual collection of footprint casts can be created that will make these specimens readily accessible to serious researchers. Scans and software for viewing the scans will be package on DVD format for distribution to serious researchers. These scans will subsequently lend themselves to a variety of comparative, morphometric, topographic analyses. They could ultimately be utilized to fabricate duplicate specimens at sites with milling or fabrication capability, ever increasingly available. One of the scanners is a large scale model and will readily accommodate the Skookum site cast replica.

Methods

The virtualization of the collections involves a number of steps. The actual scanning of the specimens themselves is actually the simplest step - involving the work of the scanning technicians in the IVL. However, the scanning is only about 20-25% of the process. Before the scanning takes place, the materials must be logged in and data compiled and entered. After scanning, the data must be edited and fused to create a water-tight virtual model. This takes about 40-50% of the total time but is very important in that it provides the means for generating prototypes, if of interest, and for the eventual use of the models in research. Finally, the virtual models must be sub-sampled (ie decimated) to a smaller model size for uploading into a three-dimensional viewer. This final process is about 20-25% of the time needed.

The 'VF' in the numbers below stand for 'Virtual Footprint' while the number is the inventory number assigned to each specimen as they came into the IVL for virtualization.