Accelerated Acquisition, Visualization, and Analysis of Zoo-Anatomical Data

The internal and external anatomical features of animals have been the focus of scientic study for thousands of years, starting with the early text-based descriptions of Aristotle and Plinius. Because complex 3D structures are in general difcult to convey using the written word, it was the invention of reproducible woodcut and block book techniques in the sixteenth century (Figure 10.1A) that led to a signicant boost in the communication of anatomical ndings (see, e.g., these seminal works: Belon (1553), Rondelet (1554), Gesner (1558), and Aldrovandi (1606)). Since then, 2D, paper-based illustrations have formed the standard for the presentation of anatomical results in scientic publications. Alas, the world that we live in is 3D by nature, and a considerable amount of information is therefore omitted when objects are portrayed two-dimensionally or described in written words. The numerous limitations inherent to analog data communication also extend to how anatomical information has been gathered and analyzed in the course of the centuries, for example, through photography, dissection, and histology (Figure 10.1B).