Kinect controlled dinosaur simulations for education and public outreach

Abstract

Dinosaurs are a source of enormous public interest and as such are useful for fostering greater interest in basic science and technology. With the increasing popularity of dinosaur films that claim to portray realistic dinosaur behaviour, one question that is regularly posed for palaeontologists to answer is how we know that our reconstructions are accurate. Dinosaur locomotion is no exception to this line of questioning and one technique for estimating how dinosaurs may have moved is multibody dynamic simulation (MBDA) of high biofidelity musculoskeletal computer models. Such simulations uses Newton's Law's of Motion to calculate how the different parts of the animals body would have moved depending on the internal forces generated by the muscles and the external forces due to gravity and physical contact with the ground. In this project we designed a system that allowed the user to directly control the muscles forces generated using a Kinect for Xbox One sensor attached to a PC using the Kinect Adaptor for Windows. The Kinect output is used to drive the muscles using customised software and models (Tyrannosaurus, Triceratops, Brachiosaurus, Edmontonia, Edmontosaurus, Gorgosaurus) based on our standard GaitSym MBDA system. The initial system was trialled over 7 days at the 2015 Cheltenham Science Festival which showed that the bipedal models were relatively easy to control using human body movements and provided a good vehicle to explain how the physics and physiology behind dinsoaur locomotor reconstruction. The quadrupedal models in their current form are much more difficult to control and further work is needed in this area. The 3D models and software for this project are freely available to download (http://www.animalsimulation.org or DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.2008977) and it is hoped that they will find further uses in areas such as 3D printing for anatomical education and virtual world simulations.

Deploying augmented reality to help engage the public with palaeontological applications

“…Within the UK, simple geological concepts are embedded in primary school education in Key Stage One and Two of the National Curriculum and palaeontology, especially that of dinosaurs, features strongly (King, 1993;Trend, 2005;Krapp andPrenzel, 2011. Sellers andPond, 2021). Most children in the UK, at least, learn about dinosaurs along with such themes as human prehistory (e.g., Stone Age, Romans, Egyptians), and simple biological functions of the body.…”

Vectipelta barretti , a new ankylosaurian dinosaur from the Lower Cretaceous Wessex Formation of the Isle of Wight, UK

“…The form of each bone was refined, and any detail added. Partial and missing bones were modelled using reference material drawn from the literature, specimen photographs and measurements taken from specimens observed first-hand by the authors or obtained and using data from photogrammetry of the bones of the holotype of Polacanthus foxi NHMUK PV R175 and a generic skeletal reconstruction of Edmontonia created by SBP (Sellers and Pond 2015).…”