3D Thrinaxodon on line

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Some of you may be interested in viewing compressed video (MPEG) animations 
of a 3D reconstruction of the Early Triassic cynodont Thrinaxodon liorhinus 
that are on the Web page of the University of Texas Computation Center.  See 
your ancestor (well, cousin) on line!  Just go to the following URL:

        http://www.utexas.edu/cc/hpcf

and the rest will be obvious.   

        The reconstruction used in these animations was built by the 
visualization group of the University of Texas Computation Center, using a 
high resolution X-ray CT 3D dataset that we published on CD-ROM with the 
University of Texas Press, in 1993, under the title:
        Thrinaxodon: Digital Atlas of the Skull, by Timothy Rowe, William    
           Carlson, and William Bottorff.

        This DOS disc includes 623-megabytes of data, including 767 CT 
images taken at 200-micron intervals along sagittal, coronal, and transverse 
(horizontal) axes, plus several animations that pan through consecutive 
slices of the skull along those axes (in .FLC and . FLI formats).  Samples 
of individual CT images can be viewed on the University of Texas Press Web 
page, and on the Web page of the University of California, Berkeley, Museum 
of Paleontology (UCMP).
        The specimen that we scanned was generously loaned for this purpose 
by Berkeley's UCMP.  It is a beautiful, nearly complete, undistorted adult 
skull and mandible (UCMP 40466), prepared by Mr. Martin Caulkin, illustrated 
in exquisite graphite and pencil drawings by Mr. Owen Poe, and described by 
Richard Estes in: 
       Estes, Richard, 1961.  Cranial Anatomy of the Cynodont Reptile        
         Thrinaxodon liorhinus.  Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative 
Zoology,          Harvard University, volume 125, pages 165-180.  
        
        The disc includes digital re-prints of Richard's article along with 
all of the other major literature on Thrinaxodon published in the last 50 
years, plus a Foreword by the late Everett C. Olson (which is mounted on the 
UT Press Web page), and several other articles describing CT scanning, how 
we built the disc, and technical documentation for those of you interested 
in manipulating the image files included on the disc.  
        Version 1.0 (for DOS, $90.00 (sorry!)) does not include the 3D 
reconstructions mentioned above.  However, they will be included in their 
original high resolution, uncompressed format on Version 2.0, which is 
scheduled for release in September, 1995, along with additional new 
animations, an anatomical tutorial to X-ray CT imagery, a new slice-by-slice 
interface, and some other new stuff.  Version 2.0 has a mature Windows 
interface that will operate on any PC running Windows, and there will be 
some level of Mac support (and, I pray, a price under $40.00).  The DOS 
interface of Version 1.0 plays properly on only a finite range of popular PC 
video cards -- be forewarned that the hyperlinked interface on this disc may 
not display properly on a lot of PC computers.  Nevertheless, an Archive 
directory offers access to all data files to any PC, Mac or UNIX computer 
with CD-ROM drive and DOS-mounting software. Anyone purchasing Version 1.0 
will get a free copy of Version 2.0.  
        Please forgive me if this seems like shameless advertising and 
self-promotion.  All royalties generated through sales of this disc go to 
the endowment account of the Vertebrate Paleontology and Radiocarbon 
Laboratory at the University of Texas, a sentimental policy that has, so 
far, cost far more to merely administer than it has generated.


Timothy Rowe
Professor
Department of Geological Sciences and 
Vertebrate Paleontology and Radiocarbon Laboratory 
The University of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas 78712

phone: 512-471-1725
fax: 512-471-9425