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Re: Pterosaur take-off visualization aid
Jim and I are in agreement here. Just as some background, the article
in question is based essentially on the launch work that Jim and I
have done; it was written specifically in response to my Zitteliana
paper on quad launch that came out at the end of December. The
writers interviewed me by phone for the article (not sure if they
spoke to anyone else, as well), and also had me consult on the
images. While several improvements could definitely be made to the
final illustration, it is much, much better than the initial draft
series. The illustrator had no working knowledge of animal takeoff or
flight, and given that, learned and improved very impressively. While
I could have continued to make suggestions and improvements upon the
version that went into print, I felt it was more than good enough to
provide the idea to the general public (and there was a deadline
looming). Considering that both writer and artist were starting from
scratch, I was pretty happy with the end product, all told.
All that said: the only individuals I know that have produced accurate
launch sequence animations for pterosaurs are John Conway (whose
animation is still quite rough) and Julia Molnar, a biological
illustrator here at Hopkins. Julia's work is nearly complete, and the
animation will be unveiled here next month. Either she or I will show
it off at SVP in Bristol. It is a 3D launch animation of Anhanguera
based on surface scans of AMNH 22555. It's a 100 million+ polygon
render, so the detail is rather good.
Cheers,
--Mike
Michael Habib, M.S.
PhD. Candidate
Center for Functional Anatomy and Evolution
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
1830 E. Monument Street
Baltimore, MD 21205
(443) 280-0181
habib@jhmi.edu
On Mar 20, 2009, at 10:28 AM, jrc wrote:
Either Mike Habib, John Conway, or I could comment, but basically we
all agree that the hop, skip, and jump isn't necessary nor
beneficial (though a lightly loaded animal could do it for the fun
of it if he wished). The two main things I notice are that in the
sketch series, the hindlimbs are not reoriented to flight position
soon enough, so that in the sketches, the uropatagium isn't
contributing to supporting the hindlimbs early in the launch. And
secondly, the hindlimbs aren't shown as contributing to the phased
power production in the launch cycle that would be required during
launch of more heavily loaded pterosaurs. The sketch as shown,
would make for a very inefficient but not impossible launch cycle.
JimC
----- Original Message ----- From: "Matthew Martyniuk" <martyniuk@gmail.com
>
To: "DML" <dinosaur@usc.edu>
Sent: Friday, March 20, 2009 8:18 AM
Subject: Re: Pterosaur take-off visualization aid
Speaking of visualizing a pterosaur launch, this diagram recently
appeared in Popular Science...
http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii242/deinonychus_empire/PopSciPterosaurArticle.jpg?t=1237505691
Jim can probably comment on its accuracy, but it looks in line with
what I've read. Aside from the weirdly bat-like wing of course ;)