3D scanner and cad software application in animal osteometry

Abstract

The research of the structure of wild animal anatomy is important and can be used to help with species conservation. The objective of this study was to describe the methodology used to digitally scan bone structure of these animals. Thus, all the steps used to perform the scapula scan of an adult specimen of Cerdocyon thous was thoroughly described as a way to illustrate the process that is being developed for the study of skeletons. A scapula was chosen to be digitalized because it is a plane bone of the forelimb and is fundamental to unite the limb to the animal's trunk. Advanced morphometric analysis of osteometry was depicted by creating three-dimensional physical models of bone structures utilizing the 3D Model Uniscan, a computational engineering tool that enables accurate results of the bone structure in the model. The equipment works by reading the points of the piece through the reflection of the laser in the lenses and sensors. These points are computed and positioned by VXelements software which is responsible for the capture of the targets, which in turn, generates a triangular surface mesh in real time which reproduces the 3D surface of the bone instantaneously. Finally, these sets of acquired data can be converted into various file formats compatible with CAD software, such as Solidworks which allows the dimensions to be extracted at different points of the object. This way of characterization and modeling allows the analysis of the structures' dimensions to be more informative and real. The obtained results of such analyzes have application in the studies of ecomorphology and evolution.