Photo: Paleontologist Ralph Chapman at a recent event at the Bradbury Science Museum. Photo by Carol A. Clark/ladailypost.com

LAEN News:

The public is invited to attend a free presentation by paleontologist Ralph Chapman titled, Virtualizing Dinosaurs: Problems, Strategies and Solutions, (from dinosaur bones to images and models.

The talk is hosted Jointly by LAEN  (Los Alamos Entrepreneurs’ Network) and The Hive (community hacker space.)

• When: 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 9
• Where: The Hive, 134 State Road 4 in White Rock (just east of the Metzger’s gas station.)

Chapman is an owner/partner of New Mexico Virtualization, a Los Alamos-based company that specializes in the 3-D scanning of objects, especially for museums and educational institutions.

The company’s latest project was for Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History and included the scanning of the whole skeleton of the Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton sometimes referred to as SUE.

Chapman is a paleontologist who specializes in a broad range of different methods of data analysis and the application of technology to the study of fossils and artifacts.

He was director of the Applied Morphometrics Laboratory at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History for nearly 20 years.

The Applied Morphometrics Laboratory specialized in high-level data analysis and the development of technology in support of the research done at that museum.

He then founded the Idaho Virtualization Laboratory at Idaho State University as well as taught at that university for five years.

Chapman is currently working on a variety of entrepreneurial projects here in northern New Mexico and resides in White Rock.