Instructor: Dr. Melissa Tallman (Grand Valley State University, USA).

DATES: May 4-8, 2015.

PLACE: Facilities of the Centre of Restauració i Interpretació Paleontologica, Els Hostalets de Pierola, Barcelona (Spain).

The workshop is entitled to teach the main concepts of shape analysis based on three-dimensional landmark coordinates. In this workshop we you will learn to manipulate 3D models and use them to collect landmark data, take measurements, and to quantify and visualize the main differences in shape.

PROGRAM:

Data Acquisition.

Using a microscribe. Collecting CT scans & Surface Scans: Demonstration of Stratovan Checkpoint.

Brief Review of Fundamentals of Morphometrics: How to choose landmarks. Generalized Procrustes Analysis. Other types of alignment.

Processing Microscribe data: Using DVLR to merge two views. Using resample to resample a line.

Using Landmark Editor to collect data on surfaces.

Discussion and demonstration of sliding semi-landmarks. How to do a precision test on 3D data.

Data exploration: PCA analyses: Using Morphologika. Using MorphoJ.

Visualizing shape change: Using MorphoJ in conjunction with Landmark Editor. Making calculations and visualizing vector displacements in Morpheus. GPAing with missing data using Morpheus.

Data interpretations: Using mean configurations (PAST) and Procrustes distances: Minimum spanning trees, Variability within a sample (comparing fossil distributions to extant distributions).

Data exploration: PLS analyses, Phylogeny and Allometry.

Programs that we will use: - Inscribe, Stratovan Checkpoint, DVLR, Resample, Landmark Editor, Morphologika,MorphoJ, Morpheus, PAST. Please feel free to distribute this information between your colleagues if you consider it appropriate.

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