China Bat Project

Co-Principal Investigator
Shandong University, Shangdong, China, 2014 – present
Funded by the China Ministry of Education and the State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs.
~Awarded tenure in spring, 2016

For the China Bat Project, I am collaborating with Rolf Mueller from the Engineering Department at Virginia Tech in a massive project to scan several bat cave sites outside Jinan, China and motion capture bat flights in the caves. Dr. Mueller’s group is investigating how the functional diversity in the bio-sonar systems of bats can be described quantitatively. The goal of this research is to find ways in which parsimonious wave-based sensors can be adapted to excel in a wide range of demanding sensory tasks.

My role is to help gather and process 3D scan data at two cave sites. I also created over 12 bat marker schematics and conducted preliminary motion-capture analysis. I assisted in CT scanning and retopologizing CT bat skeleton data and helped develop and set up a depth map capturing system. I also helped pioneer the motion capture process of facial motion capture utilizing a slow motion video system, created a 3D bat rig, and animated preliminary data in Maya.

Collaborators: Rolf Mueller (Engineering at Virginia Tech), Matthew Bender (Engineering at Virginia Tech) and Andrew Kurdila (Engineering at Virginia Tech)