Re: Computer Platforms

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Malcolm Herbert wrote:

>i have for the last couple of years been working with computer reconstructions
>of serial sections (mainly brachiopods) and I am now looking to bringing the
>reconstruction techniques to the masses
>
>but firstly a couple questions
>
>1. What are the most commonly used hardware platforms ?

Three cheers and one cheer more, Malcolm! This is something a lot of people
are (or should be) interested in. There are presumably many systems already
in operation for 3D-reconstructions based on 2D serial slices, though I
think most of them are designed for tomography, confocal microscopy, and
the like, rather than for physical sections through things such as fossils
(differences mainly at the input end), and most of them run on Unix work
stations that are still too expensive for most of us. As modern desktop
computers now generally have the power to do 3D-modelling and rendering,
development work for such platforms are extremely welcome. (I don't have
access to exact numbers, but my experience as a journal and book editor is
that something like 40% of the scientists use Macintosh OS on their
desktops; the rest of them mostly Windows/DOS - i.e. the Macintosh fraction
is considerably larger here than in the corporate world.)

At the GSA in New Orleans last week, Ron Schmidtling at UCLA demonstrated
3D-reconstructions based on serial sections through a blastoid. He had used
a modified brain-sectioning equipment at the UCLA Laboratory for Neural
Imaging for the input, and I think the reconstructions were done on a Unix
machine. (I don't have his e-mail address, but you should be able to reach
him through his supervisor, Charles Marshall [marshall@ess.ucla.edu].)

Stefan

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