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This first textbook for "Virtual Anthropology", a new branch of science that combines elements from such different fields as anthropology, radiology, forensics, mathematics, and computer science, spans from an introduction into the discipline over medical imaging and digitising techniques, the analysis and reconstruction of morphology based on spatial geometry of biological objects, to many examples of real applications and future perspectives for researchers.
Readers are introduced step by step into the methods of operation to particularly understand their relevance for research and society. Readers are likewise encouraged to have a go on their own using the enclosed DVD that contains instructive exercises, answers, links to free software, and 2D & 3D data to make the first steps.
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
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.
