USING SHORT-RANGE PHOTOGRAMMETRY FOR 3D DIGITAL RECONSTRUCTION OF ARKANSAURUS FRIDAYI FOSSIL BONES

The only known dinosaur fossil bones from Arkansas were found in 1972 near Locksburg in the SW corner of the state. Bones from an almost complete right foot were recovered from sedimentary rocks of the Lower Cretaceous Trinity Group. The fossil find was new to science and was formally cataloged and officially named in 2018 as the species: Arkansaurus fridayi. This species belongs to a larger group of small bipedal, ostrich-like dinosaurs. This is a significant paleontological specimen because similar species of dinosaur are rare in North America, where related specimens have only been found in Utah, Montana and Maryland.

Arkansaurus fridayi is the state dinosaur of Arkansas, but very few people have ever seen the evidence of its existence. The fossilized bones are part of the collection in the University of Arkansas Museum in Fayetteville, AR and an artist’s reconstruction of the dinosaur is in storage at the Arkansas Geological Survey in Little Rock, AR. The main objective of this work is to generate the first three-dimensional digital models of the fossilized bones and of the reconstructed model of this species. The approach to be taken will be based on the application of short-range photogrammetry. This process derives high quality and detailed 3D reconstructions of real-world objects from digital photographs taken from different points of view using relatively low-cost hardware and software resources. The resulting 3D digital models will be disseminated online, thereby making this important part of Arkansas’s natural history available to a much wider audience.