Computer Graphics World

July 2009 41 Digital Imaging n n n n looks like what they see in a museum. at is not the case. e only reason why you see these articulated dinosaurs on TV is be- cause they are special. We have been look- ing for fossils in Wyoming for 15 years, and we have never found a dinosaur that even had a complete pair of legs, let alone a complete skeleton." Furthermore, the X-rays reveal the con- tact line of the keratinous beak, where it started and where the skin ended. "e beak climbs up the nose bridge much farther than we had imagined," states prominent paleontologist Bob Bakker, who was present during the processes in Malta and Houston, and during the documentary filming. e imagery also enabled the scientists to map the complex digestive path—from the throat through the intestines—after uncovering what they believed to be undi- gested food. "He was a high-fiber chewer and processor of the toughest plants in the ecosystem," says Bakker, "which explains why duckbills had been so successful for such a long time." For now, one of the most impressive oc- currences was when the group looked at the dinosaur's intestines—a first for them. "We have 3D soft tissue structures inside the visceral cavity of an almost full-grown dinosaur," Bakker further states. But, did the group find the Holy Grail: a heart and liver? e scientists cannot be sure, though they do believe that they locat- ed the region where the heart may be, though a better resolution image is needed to determine this with a high degree of certainty. Andersen's presumption is based on the fact that regions rich in iron would be more dense to the X- rays than other areas of fat and muscle. "We did find some fuzzy areas where maybe the heart and perhaps the liver could be. A CT scan might reveal more." Larson has located a CT scanner that might be able to handle a scan of Jurassic proportions, but it is currently dismantled and is awaiting shipment to a new loca- tion, possibly in Europe. Wherever the device ends up, the problem then becomes shipping the fragile Leonardo to the lo- cale—a difficult but not impossible task, says Larson. Bakker, in the documetary film, summed up the situation well: "We are awash in a sea of clues. We definitely have something going on there." What is certain is that the high-tech im- ages of the internal and external structures have brought the world closer to a living dinosaur than it has ever been. For now, the group continues to study the imagery, and there is even discussion about taking core samples, although Andersen would rather wait and let technol- ogy get further ahead. "Leonardo is so rare, and we really do not want to perform any kinds of in- vasive tests that we would regret in the future," An- dersen says. "After all, we cannot go back once the damage has been done. While some suggested that taking core samples by cut- ting into the dinosaur would offer more definitive answers as to whether a heart and liver are present, I would rather wait and eventually try to get a good CT scan rather than do the probes and then look back and ask, 'Why did I ever do that?' at hap- pens now as we look back on work that was done 50 to 100 years ago." Andersen offers up the Smithsonian's 100-year-old triceratops as an example of destructive methods: Steel pipe had been cemented into the fossilized bone. In con- trast, the Chicago Field Museum's more re- cent Sue, said to be the most complete and best preserved Tyrannosaurus rex specimen ever found, contains a steel armature struc- ture attached to the outside of the bone, not through it. So, as new technologies become available, the fossil could be studied further. "I hope that what we have done here will inspire other high-tech and scientific work on dinosaurs, including further study of Leonardo," says Andersen. "I hope to see more and more digital scanning of fossils as time goes on. People love dinosaurs, but there is not a lot of funds available for this type of work, unfortunately." For the time being, though, the group is content that it has created the world's first anatomically correct dinosaur, and in do- ing so, changed the field of paleontology forever. n Karen Moltenbrey is the chief editor of Computer Graphics World. Above is a low-resolution scanned image depicting the dinosaur's tendons and vertebrae; inset shows the region on the fossil. (Left) The area were the liver should be located appears in the lower center of the image. (Right) The white image in the lower center is the most probable location of the heart.

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