Available at: https://www.graysvertebrateanatomy.com/work/colorsofskullanatomy/
With more than 45 thousand collective views on Sketchfab, the Colors of Skull Anatomy collection of educational models has been a popular choice for learning comparative skull anatomy for the last 4 years.
I came up with the color scheme back when I was doing my PhD on Australian dragon lizard skulls. I worked on coming up with a collection of colors that, when applied, would be color blind friendly and would allow for easy differentiation between skull bones. I provided an example of a jacky dragon with the key applied in my PhD thesis. The jacky dragon example showed cranial elements that were discussed within my dissertation, and that are referred to in definitions of landmarks used for geometric morphometrics. I saved all the hex codes in a spreadsheet for future applications to skull models.
The “Colors of Skull Anatomy” collection was established during COVID lockdowns back in 2020. I was stuck in Australia working remotely on educational models for the open Vertebrate (oVert) project. I started applying my color scheme to other vertebrate skulls and making the models available to view on Sketchfab, with annotations for all the elements. Later on, I even started animating them as “exploding skulls” (the Beauchêne method), and created a Blender tutorial to help others do the same.
The collection is now also available on MorphoSource, where you can download the colored PLY files, and use 3D modeling software to pull the skull bones apart. The MorphoSource collection also links the models back to the original CT scan that was used to create them. More recently, and in the light of Sketchfab’s uncertain future, I made the skull collection a home on my website. Here, you can find links to the embedded skull models, along with a table of all the hex codes used to color the bones, in case you want to create your own to match the rest of the collection!
I’m always working on more skulls for the collection, so stay tuned for more additions soon!
“The color coded skulls have been wonderful for teaching herps and other ologies during the remote teaching times. Such a great resource! I even had a vision impaired student this semester who was able to learn much better from the 3D models on a tablet vs holding the actual tiny skeletons. Thanks!”
– A happy Colors of Skull Anatomy user