Ballistic jumps of trap-jaw ants and computational methods for image analysis

Rosario, Michael

2015-11-30T20:14:05Z

2015-11-30T20:14:05Z

2014

The ability to convert digital images that capture data from the world is an important skill, and given the ubiquity of camera technology in the modern world this skill is increasingly useful. By understanding how to process digital images into manageable datasets, researchers have created algorithms which can recognize individuals from security camera footage as well as those which can identify and track stars using images from telescopes. The ability to process image data is particularly applicable in the study of extremely fast biological movement, where high speed video can capture one second of life in over 1,000,000 frames. Although these movements involve elastic mechanisms and occur on extremely fast time scales, we can use some basic tools and equations to understand and analyze them. This lab will make use of video recorded from a high speed camera to analyze the ballistic trajectory of Odontomachus bauri, the trap-jaw ant. We will be using imageJ, an image program that researchers often use to make numerical measurements from images and videos, to manually collect data from a trap-jaw ant during its jump, and then use R to calculate velocity, take-off angle, and projected distance of the jump. We’ll then take a computer-vision approach to automate these calculations. Finally, you’ll have the opportunity to use these tools and techniques

How Organisms Move, Bio 490S, 2014

https://hdl.handle.net/10161/10929

en_US

Data Expeditions

Natural Sciences

Ballistic jumps of trap-jaw ants and computational methods for image analysis

Dataset