Here’s that cat-skull multiview you ordered
September 22, 2015
The process of reassembling my cat skull continues. I now have the sphenoid and both nasals now back in place, and the time has come for the now-traditional multiview. (Previous examples: pig skull, wallaby skull, sheep skull.
Click through for seriously high resolution (9602 × 7642).
And here it is on a black background:
As though you need to be told: the top row shows the dorsal view, the middle row (from left to right) shows posterior, right lateral and anterior views, and the bottom row shows the ventral view.
Enjoy!
Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week 
September 22, 2015 at 8:32 am
That is pretty cool. And helpful for picturing a live thing when looking at a dead thing. But I studied drafting once, back when it was a thing. And I see the draftsmans tools in that layout. I wonder if we are still in that era. Ideal these days would be a way to rotate the specimen in at least 2 axis.
September 22, 2015 at 8:34 am
Sorry, Frosted Flake, I’m not following your point about drafting. Are you saying that photos are irrelevant in the days of 3d models?
September 25, 2015 at 9:36 am
Sorry, Mike. Should have paid more attention.
I was suggesting that it might be useful to move in the direction of a new and more data intensive method of photographing fossils. I was suggesting that less imagination and spatial reasoning would be needed if the student could manipulate the image so as to look at it from any direction and also to turn and zoom the object smoothly while watching it. As if the specimen was actually in hand. I was suggesting that the method used here has limitations which we don’t have to put up with given the tools available today. I was suggesting that such a method need only be developed once to be available to all. And I was suggesting it is possible the tool is already on the shelf, waiting to be asked for.
September 25, 2015 at 9:40 am
Yep. I think all of that is true. It’s not a big job now to use photogrammetry to create 3d models — see various tutorials by Heinrich Mallison and Peter Falkingham.
That said, it’s not a trivial job, either. I would probably take the time to learn how to do this for myself if I didn’t have so much else going on. But since I do, I can’t really find the time for it right now.
September 25, 2015 at 10:04 am
Thanks, Mike. I was hoping to plant a seed. That seems to have happened. Maybe later it will grow. If not under your care, then perhaps in care of someone you think of and hand it off to.
September 25, 2015 at 10:11 am
Yeah, I’d like to do this habitually. If we can reach a stage where the regular procedure for descriptive work includes creating and distributing 3d models of the elements of the specimen, then that will be a huge win.
March 28, 2016 at 6:30 pm
[…] (I will prepare nicer, scientific-quality photographs in orthogonal views once preparation is complete — as I have done for other skulls.) […]
April 2, 2016 at 9:15 am
[…] got the fox’s skull out of its head. So here are the two I have now: the badger (left) and the cat […]
January 30, 2017 at 10:39 pm
Brilliant! I was wondering if my cats hump on the back of his skull was normal. And I see it on your photographs.The centered shark fin on the top rear. Glad its not some disease!