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Simpleware Shark Model Features on Discovery

Channel


Researchers at the University of Bath are using Simpleware technology to find out how sharks can smell a drop of blood from up to a kilometre away. The research recently featured on the Discovery Channel Daily Planet programme.
Research led by Dr Jonathan Cox at the University of Bath is using Simpleware technology to find out how sharks can smell a drop of blood from up to a kilometre away. Dr Cox has been working with researchers from the University of Cambridge and the Natural History Museum in London, testing a scale model of a hammerhead shark in a flow tank to see how the water flows around the nasal cavity of its strange flattened head.

This story recently featured on Discovery Channel Canada’s Daily Planet programme (clip starts at 5 min 50 sec). The model was also shown on BBC2’s Museum of Life series about the Natural History Museum.
Jonathan Cox (right) and his student lower the model into the flow tank

Model generation with Simpleware




Model of the shark head in ScanIP
(click on the image to open the full case study)
The researchers did a CT scan of a shark’s head from the Natural History Museum’s collection. The scan was converted in Simpleware software to make an accurate model of the head and nasal cavity with a 3D printer.

The DICOM images were imported into ScanIP. The Floodfill segmentation tool was used to fill unwanted internal cavities whilst preserving the nasal cavity. Some features in the olfactory chamber were manually refined using the Paint tool. To generate the STL file, volume and topology preserving smoothing was utilised to smooth the segmentation without losing the small features of the lamellae.

Water flow simulation


The hammerhead shark smells as it swims forwards, propelling water through its nose. The nasal cavity of the hammerhead is like a labyrinth of pipes, with a central U-shaped channel and lots of smaller channels leading off it. The researchers are using a flow tank to observe how water flows into the nasal cavity of the shark and through its channels.

The scientists hope their research into the hammerhead’s amazing sense of smell could be used in the future to design chemical sensors for underwater exploration, medicine, environmental pollution or even counter terrorism.
Flow tank simulating how water flows into the nasal cavity
(click on the image to open a short video clip)

About Hammerhead sharks

Hammerhead sharks are fish. However, they do not lay eggs but instead give birth to live young, a process known as viviparity. Their bizarre hammer-shaped head is thought to help them sense electrical signals, which they use to detect prey. Rays are a favourite food, but they also feed on fish, crabs, squid, lobsters and other sea creatures. There are 8 hammerhead shark species, the largest being the great hammerhead, which has been reported to grow to just over 6m.