Visualization of High Dimensional Data in Comparative Morphology: Applications to Higher Primate Evolution

在进化背景下，动物结构的可视化和分析已经从简单的“目测”发展到传统的形态计量学（卡尺测量的多变量分析），现在正在进入几何形态计量学的新体制。在这种方法中，地标和中间线或表面的三维（3D）坐标是通过数字化仪或CT或类似扫描获得的。因此，这些点、线和面之间的空间关系被明确地保留了下来。这些坐标数据可以可视化为二维和三维图像，在高维形状空间中进行操作和统计分析。研究人员将开发一套数据库、统计和操作工具，以允许跨越性别和年龄差异的个体和种群之间的形态学快速可视化和比较，包括现存和灭绝的样本，有效地形成一个用于计算机分析的虚拟形态学数据库。从未变形的近亲中重建受损化石，将祖先物种变形为可视化的后代，探索颅内特征，利用跨物种的功能图像和立体数据追踪脑神经化学途径的进化，以及脑和颅骨形态的综合分析是该项目的目标之一。重点将放在类人猿或“高等”灵长类动物（人类、猿类和猴子）的头骨和大脑上，但这些工具和方法将对动物学家和古生物学家的广泛受众有用。该团队位于美国自然历史博物馆，得益于其庞大的藏品和可用的可视化基础设施，以及在4平方米的现实室沉浸环境墙壁和新装修的海登天文馆的21米数字圆顶上向同事和感兴趣的公众展示我们的展品的独特机会。

The visualization and analysis of animal structure in an evolutionary context has progressed from simple "eyeballing" to traditional morphometrics (multivariate analysis of caliper measurements) and is now entering the new regime of geometric morphometrics. In this approach, the three-dimensional (3D) coordinates of landmarks and intervening lines or surfaces are obtained with a digitizer or from CT or similar scans. Thus, the spatial relationships among these points, lines and surfaces areexpressly preserved. These coordinate data can be visualized as 2D and 3D images, manipulated, and statistically analyzed in high-dimensional shape space. The researchers will develop a set of database, statistical and manipulative tools to allow the rapid visualization and comparison of morphology among individuals and populations, across sex and age differences, including both extant and extinct samples, effectively forming a database of virtual morphology for computerized analysis. Reconstruction of damaged fossils from undistorted relatives, morphing of ancestral species into visualized descendants, exploration of endocranial features, tracing the evolution of brain neurochemical pathways using functional images and stereologic data across species, and combined analyses of brain and bony skull form are among the goals of this project. The focus will be on the skull and brain of the Anthropoidea or "higher" primates (humans, apes and monkeys), but the tools and approaches will be useful to a wide audience of zoologists and paleontologists. Based at the American Museum of Natural History, the team benefits from its vast collections and available visualization infrastructure, as well as the unique opportunity to project our displays to colleagues and the interested public on the 4-square-meter walls of the Reality Room immersion environment and the 21 meter Digital Dome of the newly renovated Hayden Planetarium.