Blaschka "Football Sea Squirt" (CT & Photos)

3D Model

Model SC-418 of the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology Collection of Blaschka Marine Invertebrates. This is a partially painted glass model of a Tunicate Colony known commonly as the “Football Sea Squirt” (Diazona violacea, described by Savigny in 1816). The Encyclopedia of Life (https://eol.org/pages/46583699) states that this tunicate colony is found in the NE Atlantic and Mediterranean. This small (~5 cm) model is one of thousands made by Rudolf and Leopold Blaschka as educational models in the late 1800s.

The high definition of the model results from a 6M-face mesh made from a CT scan by Jon Woodward at Harvard. This was decimated to 1M faces and aligned and merged in Agisoft Metashape with a mesh made from 699 photographs. The combined mesh was then textured from the photos. The thick white-green paint on the bottom section was transparent to the X-rays, requiring the photos to create this section of mesh. With thanks to Prof. James Hanken (Curator) for access to the models.