Homo naledi

As time goes by we noticed that the post we should write are always more and more, while our free is decreasing. Today I have a little bit of extra-time, as I am travelling on the train, so I decided to publish some other data referred to the open source exhibition "Facce", we organized in Padua in 2015 (from an idea of the curator of the Anthropological Museum of the University Nicola Carrara). 

As maybe you know, the exhibition was based on the topic of human faces and one section ("Guardiamo in faccia la diversità umana") was dedicated to human evolution. This section has been presented this year also in Genoa (in the Doge's Palace) at the Science Festival 2016. We already published some of the 20 facial reconstructions of hominini, performed with the technique we developed (Coherent Anatomical Deformation). 

Here I would like to present the new entry of the Genoa's exhibition: The Homo naledi:

Facial reconstruction of Homo naledi

As always, the Facial Recosntruction has been performed by Cicero Moraes (Arc-Team), while the scientific validation has bees done by Telmo Pievani and Nicola Carrara (University of Padua). On the contrary of what happened for most of the other paeoartistic reconstructions, this time it has not been necessary to scan the cast of specimen, but we could use directly the composite skull of Homo naledi (based on DH1 and DH3), constructed by Prof. Peter Schmid in September 2015, as a Courtesy of the University of the Witwatersrand and the Dinaledi project. The files were downloaded from www.MorphoSource.org, Duke University.

Australopithecus sediba

The Australopithecus sediba is another important reconstruction done for the open source exhibition "Facce. I molti volti della storia umana" [1]. In getting access to the cast and in producing the 3D model of the skull, to start the to work of the facial restitution, we have been supported by Prof. Telmo Pievani, who put us in connection with the exposition "Homo sapiens" (and with its scientific material). Once the digital model of the cranium has been produced with photographic (SfM/MVSR [2]) techniques, +Cícero Moraes could proceed with the protocol we developed about Forensic Facial Reconstruction [4] of Homini (Paleoart) with coherent anatomical deformation of a Pan troglodytes CT scan [3].

In order to go on with the free sharing and disclosure, under open licenses (Creative Commons Attribution International: CC-BY-4.0), of the material we produced during the preparation of the exhibition "Facce", I uploaded today the result of this FFR in Wikimedia Commons.

Here below is the final image, which has been developed thanks to a joned effort of Luca Bezzi (Arc-Team) and Nicola Carrara (Anthropological Museum of the University of Padua), for 3D model of the skull; +Cícero Moraes (Arc-Team) for the main work of 3D FFR modeling; Prof. Telmo Pievani (University of Padua, Biology Department), for scientific validation.

Facial Reconstruction of the Australopithecus sediba

The anatomical deformation technique, used for the facial reconstruction of the Australopithecus sediba, is well illustrated in the following video (by +Cícero Moraes):

Webography

[1] FaceBook, ATOR 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, TV7, oggiscienza, Archeomatica

[2] ATOR 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19

[3] ATOR 1, 2

[4] ATOR 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

The meaning of an "open source exhibition"

As many of you know, since more than one year we are working on the exhibition "Facce. I molti volti della storia umana". Now that the exhibition was inaugurated and our work is completed, it is time to share with open licenses (CC-BY) what we produced. 

It will be a long process, as the materials are different (images, photos, video, 3D models), nevertheless we have to start uploading the documents. Thanks to a short discussion with +Maurizio Napolitano (Fondazione Bruno Kessler) and +Rodrigo Padula (Grupo Wikimedia Brasileiro de Educação e Pesquisa), both expert in open data, I think that the best solution will be to upload the data directly in ATOR, where I can cite all the people who participated in the "production process", from 3D scan to facial reconstruction, till scientific validation.

IMHO the best image to start with is the one of the Taung Child, for different reason: it has been the first attempt performed by our team in order to reconstruct the face of an hominid; it summarizes our concept of Open Research; it has been one of the ideas that gave birth to exhibition "Facce", as Dr. Nicola Carrara conceived it; it is the first project in which Arc-Team, the Anthropological Museum of the University of Padua and Antrocom worked together; last but not least, it is a perfect example of what we mean of open data. Indeed the first reconstruction we produced (version 1.0), which actually is already part of the related article in Wikipedia, has been modified after the development (and the validation) of a new technique of paleo-art, based on the anatomical deformation of a CT scan of a Pan troglodytes. For this reason now we have a new and more accurate reconstruction, which can be considered a version 2.0 of the same model. 

The open data we intend to share here in ATOR are meant to be open not only in the direction of free access for everyone, but also (most important) under the temporal dimension: they should just represent a step of a continuous evolution of the research, in which all the reconstructions can be considerate simply as the latest release of a model (exactly like in software development, with new versions and forks). For this reason we choose the Creative Commons Attribution license, in order to allow derived works and projects.

The two images below can explain better this concept: the first one represent the Taung Child reconstruction in his first version (based on an anatomical study of primates), while the second one is derived by the anatomical deformation of Pan troglodytes CT scan.

The first version of the reconstruction of the Taung Child

The second version of the Taung Child

Both of the models are the result of a team work, although most of the process (and in particular the most important and delicate phases) has been performed by the 3D artist  +Cícero Moraes. Here below I want to cite the credits for this reconstruction (following the same order of the work-flow):

1. 3D scan of the cast: Luca Bezzi (Arc-Team) and +Moreno Tiziani (Antrocom)

2. 3D modeling (skull restoration, anatomical study, CT deformation): +Cícero Moraes (Arc-Team)

3. scientific validation: Prof. Telmo Pievani (University of Padua, Department of Biology) and Dott. Nicola Carrara(Anthropological Museum of the University of Padua)

Acknowledgement:

The Anthropological Museum of the University of Pauda, for providing the cast of the fossil.

The KUPRI, Primate Research Institute Kyoto University, for sharing the CT scans of different primates.

Dr. Claudio Paluani (University of Padua), who, during the lesson "Digital bones" at the Botanical Garden of the University of Padua, had the same idea we had about the validation of the methodology of anatomical deformation through the modification of two CT scans of living primates. This fact convinced us to perform the test, after seeing that more people reached the same conclusion about the validation problem.

3D printing for Cultural Heritage

As many of you know,

since last year we are working on the preparation of the open source exhibition "FACCE. I molti volti della storia umana" (here some news in ATOR: 1, 2 and here the official page and the FB page). Of course all the software we are using are Free and Open (FLOSS), but for some particular exhibits, we are working also with open hardware.

Our interest in this specific topic dates back to 2006, when we started investigating the potentialities of open hardware in archeology, especially in the field of aerial photography e rapid prototyping. We get the first results in 2008, with our UAVP prototype (here some news from ATOR: 1, 2) an all the other UAV we built (KK, etc...).

For the exhibition the main open hardware we used are 3D printing machines. We experienced different solutions: +Leonardo Zampi printed the 3D model of the Taung Child thanks to the Kentstrapper machines, an ideal choice if you want an hardware which is ready to work out of the box (here the related articles: 1, 2)...

The Taung Child printed in the Volta printer (Kentstrapper)

... and we build our own device from the scratch, a Fa)(a 3D, thanks to +Giacomo Falaschi  and +silvio tassinari , of Roma Makers.

Building the Fa)(a 3D at Roma Makers lab.

One of the main issue in 3D printing for Cultural Heritage is to replicate an object in the right scale (otherwise you will just print a souvenir) and this is why it is very important to know how to perform a 3D scan, but also how to post-process your data ( (in ATOR you will find a lot of informations about this), in order to send the right file to the machine.
Here are some example of the models we are printing for the exhibition (scale 1:1): some 3D skulls of hominids (different individuals of Homo georgicus) we were able to scan, tanks to the kindness of Prof. David Lordkipanidze, during our mission to Tiblisi and Dmanisi. We will use them to prepare some Augmented Reality interactive exhibits related to paleoart.

3D printed skull (side view)

3D printed skull (front view)

And here is a short video of our Fa)(a 3D in action:

Have a nice day!

Smilodon, the 3D reconstruction of the saber-toothed cat

According to Wikipedia:

Smilodon, often called a saber-toothed cat or incorrectly a saber-toothed tiger, is an extinct genus of machairodonts. This saber-toothed cat was endemic to North and South America, living during the Pleistocene epoch (2.5 mya—10,000 years ago).

To reconstruct this beautiful and famous feline, I had the help of two people. I wanna to thank Mr. Renoaldo Kaczmarech, the owner of the replica and the Prof. Dr. Moacir Elias Santos, that took the photos with great quality, perfect to be scanned in 3D.

The video show the skull reconstructed in 3D with Python Photogrammetry Toolkit GUI.

If you wanna see the step-by-step of the modeling, please look this link:

https://plus.google.com/photos/115430171389306289690/albums/5858580236800053057

I hope you enjoy.

A big hug and I see you in the next!