Bot says, "Creating the animal with all its scars was an artistic and technical challenge, but we feel that we were able to reproduce this animal faithfully." Scallywag was found missing one front flipper and floating in the water at Blowing Rocks Preserve after suffering from an apparent shark attack. Bot, who animated a subadult green sea turtle from LMC nicknamed Scallywag, says he was immediately drawn into animal's intricacies. The animators spent hundreds of hours animating the 3D turtle models in a format that may be used for VR, film or game applications, among others, Irschick says. They can also be used in VR or game-like educational environments, and are available at no cost to educators, scientists, conservationists and others for creative or nonprofit use on the Digital Life website." These models can be used by scientists in a computer modeling environment for testing models of migration in sea turtles, or to test different net designs to avoid trapping sea turtles. Photographer Shepard adds, "The models can be downloaded and 3D printed, such as for classroom use. To our knowledge it's the first time that 3D models of live sea turtles have been created from live animals." Irschick, co-founder and director of the Digital Life project, says, "The value of these models is substantial, and includes both scientific and educational uses. Today's launch also includes a Digital Life Project sea turtle blog and web page describing the project in detail. Other research partners on the sea turtle project include biologist Annabelle Brooks of the Cape Eleuthera Institute, Bahamas, and the Center for Evolutionary Materials at UMass Amherst, home of the Digital Life Project.
Capturing reality stock software#
The Digital Life team, with volunteer 3D artists Jer Bot and Johnson Martin created the animated sea turtles using software such as Capturing Reality and Blender and a process called photogrammetry, in which multiple still photos are integrated to create lifelike 3D meshes with photographic colors. In collaboration with the Loggerhead Marinelife Center (LMC) of Juno Beach, Florida, Inwater Research Group of Jensen Beach, Florida, and Jeanette Wyneken of Florida Atlantic University, Digital Life's photographer Christine Shepard captured photographs of live sea turtles using the Beastcam technology, a custom multi-camera system created by biologist Duncan Irschick's laboratory at UMass Amherst for live animal 3D image capture.
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