trouble shooting this applet
printable version of this image 3D Modeling from Contours
A photograph of the tadpole was mapped to a surface plane of the calculated metric size of the image. B-splines were traced over the photograph in the xy plane. Tracing of the lateral photograph included the contour shape, as well as other clearly delineated anatomical structures. The lateral countour tracings also included anticipated highpoints for the tail and gut. As the tail and gut are approximately radial, the highpoint was near the median axis. No longitudinal lines were traced; however the control vertices of the multiple latitudinal b-spline tracings were paired in an approximate longitudenal orientation. Additional photographs of the dorsal and ventral views were mapped to appropriately orientated planes. Rather than introduce new contour lines, the lateral tracings were adjusted in the z directions to fit the dorsal and anterior photographs. The modeling of our specimen continued by connecting the contour splines in a grid like fashion. The grid spacing is now mostly consistent, but tightly grouped in areas requiring detail, using triangular sections when necessary. A surface modifier was applied to produce bezier surface patches and generate a 3D surface model.

Mac OSX considerations(affecting multiple browsers)
Safari web browser considerations
manually download Shockwave 3D

Resolving Mac OSX issues affecting multiple browsers


In some situations the Shockwave plugin for OSX reports a problem with the Shockwave content.
This issue can be resolved by removing the installed plugin and installing the latest version from Macromedia.
  1. Download and mount the ".dmg" Shockwave 3D plugin from macromedia.
  2. Run the Shockwave installer, changing the "easy install" selection to "uninstall".
  3. Once the files have been removed, change the "uninstall" selection to "easy install".
  4. If you are using safari you may need to follow the additional steps below.

Resolving Safari web browser issues


To get Shockwave 3D to function properly with the Safari web browser do the following:
  1. Hold down the control key and click on the shockwave applet.
  2. From the popup menu select:
    3D Renderer > Always Use Software Renderer
Safari is now properly configured for Shockwave 3D
This a known issue with Shockwave 3D content and the Safari web browser.