ABI Sustaining: Maintenance of the XMA/ZMAPortal video data management systems and XMALab video motion analysis software for the comparative biomechanics community

Brown University, Providence RI

Investigators

Abstract

Comparative biomechanics is the field that studies the fundamental engineering rules governing how organisms move, frequently leading to practical applications as well as basic understanding. For example, by comparing the biomechanics of swimming in sharks, fish and whales, efficient swimming robots have been developed for undersea exploration and search and rescue. A wide array of instruments is used by different research groups to collect similar motion-capture data, and a wide array of methods is used to store and document the data, including both commercial software and locally-generated code as tools for data analysis, creating technical barriers to sharing and reusing both data and tools. Since progress in science is accelerated when scientists can share and reuse data and software, these technical barriers have hindered wide data sharing in the field of comparative biomechanics. The goal of this project is to maintain online data management and software analysis tools to accelerate research in comparative biomechanics. These tools, the Zoological Motion Analysis Portal (zmaportal.org), X-ray Motion Analysis Portal (xmaportal.org) and X-ray Motion Analysis Lab (XMALab client software) were developed with NSF support, and this project will provide routine maintenance of the open-source code base and server and storage space for hosting the online tools. These biological informatics tools are accelerating research in comparative biomechanics by enhancing data sharing and the ability to compare across species. From such comparisons, fundamental engineering concepts are discovered, that can then be applied to human engineering designs (biologically-inspired design and biomimetics). These advances promote US economic competiveness through technological innovation. New discoveries in the field of comparative biomechanics have often been driven by the introduction of new technologies. High-speed video imaging, X-ray imaging, XROMM and 3-D motion analysis are key components of this toolkit. A fundamental goal of comparative biomechanics is to compare species in a phylogenetic context, and thereby to extract robust relationships between phenotype (form) and biomechanical function. The tools to be maintained through this resource significantly increase the throughput of motion analysis, thereby increasing the number of species available for comparison. The XMAPortal and ZMAPortal are designed to standardize video data and metadata, thereby facilitating reproducibility and comparison among many studies of multiple species from data collected at multiple research sites. Together these products will increase the quality, quantity, reusability, and comparability of animal motion data available for comparative biomechanics research. This project will maintain valuable cyberinfrastructure tools for the study of animals in motion for comparative biomechanics research. It will support continued efforts to make these tools accessible to as wide a range of scientists and students as possible. Toward broad understanding and appreciation of science, animals in motion are inherently beautiful and fascinating to the general public. XROMM animations are visually compelling, and the xromm.org web site has received, and continues to receive, substantial interest from the lay press and television producers. The results of this project may be found at the following stable URLs: [xromm.org; xmaportal.org; zmaportal.org; bitbucket.org/xromm/xmalab/].