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

在进化背景下的动物结构的可视化和分析已经从简单的“目测”发展到传统的形态测量学（卡尺测量的多变量分析），现在正在进入几何形态测量学的新领域。在这种方法中，界标和中间线或表面的三维（3D）坐标是用数字化仪或从CT或类似扫描获得的。因此，这些点、线、面之间的空间关系被明确地保留下来。这些坐标数据可以可视化为2D和3D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，以允许快速可视化和比较个体和种群之间的形态，跨越性别和年龄差异，包括现存和灭绝的样本，有效地形成虚拟形态数据库，用于计算机分析。该项目的目标包括：从未变形的亲属中重建受损的化石，将祖先物种变形为可视化的后代，探索颅内特征，使用跨物种的功能图像和体视学数据追踪大脑神经化学通路的演变，以及对大脑和骨骼头骨形式的联合分析。重点将放在类人猿或“高等”灵长类动物（人类，猿和猴子）的头骨和大脑上，但工具和方法将对动物学家和古生物学家的广泛受众有用。总部设在美国自然历史博物馆，该团队受益于其庞大的收藏和可用的可视化基础设施，以及独特的机会，将我们的显示器投影到现实室沉浸环境的4平方米墙壁和新装修的海登天文馆的21米数字圆顶上的同事和感兴趣的公众。

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.