CT-Based Paleontologic Dig: Image, Archive, Reconstruct and build a T-REX

Eric Hoffman, Ge Wang, Geoffrey McLennan, Joseph Reinhardt, John Haller, Chul-Ho Won, Kim Hollrah
eric@everest.radiology.uiowa.edu

When the first nearly complete (90%) T-Rex (Tyrannosaurus rex: "Sue") was found, it made major news around the world. It is on permanent display now at the Chicago Field Museum. A second T-Rex has been extracted from its 67 million year old resting place and the bones sit in jackets holding slabs of earth here in Iowa City. The T-Rex is an infant and promises to provide unprecedented new information.

The class project would be multi-fold

• Identify the best imaging protocol for scanning the jackets of unearthed material. (A state-of-the-art Subsecond Multislice Spiral Scanner will be available: Marconi MX-8000)
• Completely scan all material and create a CD data set in DICOM format.
• Generate initial composite three-dimensional displays of the bones.
• Identify specific bones of interest.
• Segment the select group of bones that can be identified as forming a cohesive structure of interest.
• Create a stereo lithographic file of the bones in question and generate a physical model of the set of bones.
• Piece the bones together for display and donate the structure to the Iowa Children's Museum.

Medical Imaging Issues to be learned:

• Imaging and Image Archiving.
• Image Reconstruction Methods.
• Image Segmentation.
• Three Dimensional Display Methods.