Virtual Anthropology

This is the first textbook for a new branch of science combining elements of anthropology, radiology, forensics, mathematics, and computer science. It is intended for use by all kind of students, as well as teachers, journalists and interested layman.

This volume details Virtual Anthropology, a new branch of science that combines elements from such different fields as anthropology, radiology, forensics, mathematics, and computer science. It offers an ideal introduction into the discipline. Coverage details medical imaging and digitizing techniques as well as the analysis and reconstruction of morphology based on spatial geometry of biological objects. Many examples of real applications and future perspectives are featured throughout the volume. In addition, an accompanying DVD contains instructive exercises, answers, links to free software, and 2D and 3D data, allowing readers to take their first steps into the subject. The volume carefully walks readers, step-by-step into the methods of operation to particularly understand their relevance for research and society. It is ideal for all kinds of students from biological to medical and technical fields as well as by teachers, journalists, and interested laymen.

New and unique textbook to a new branch of science Interdisciplinary approach Online material with instructive exercises

Autorentext
Gerhard W. Weber is associate professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Vienna. A pioneer in digital extensions of anthropology since the early 1990s, he leads the Virtual Anthropology workgroup and the Vienna Micro-CT Lab as well as other projects at the University of Vienna towards centred on the new technology. He also established the digital@rchive of Fossil Hominoids and initiated and coordinated the EU-funded European Virtual Anthropology Network. He has been active for a decade in field work in the Afar Triangle in Ethiopia. His teaching comprises applied statistics, human evolution, and Virtual Anthropology. Fred L. Bookstein, an American, is Professor of Morphometrics at the University of Vienna and Professor of Statistics at the University of Washington, Seattle. He is the principal figure responsible for the emergence of Morphometrics over the last quarter-century as an interdisciplinary method combining medical imaging, analytic geometry, and multivariate statistics in novel tools for the analysis of biological form and its variation. The course he most enjoys teaching is Numbers and Reasons, about the origins of quantitative methods in the real world.

Inhalt

Chapter 1: Virtual Anthropology: A new interdisciplinary field of science

Chapter 2: Mapping the physical world: Digitise

Chapter 3: Looking inside: Expose

Chapter 4: Using numbers: Compare

Chapter 5: Missing data: Reconstruct

Chapter 6: Back to the real world: Materialise

Chapter 7: Collaborate at the speed of light: Share

Chapter 8: Views into the future