2nd lumbar vertebral specimens were obtained as part of the European Union BIOMED I study ‘Assessment of Bone Quality in Osteoporosis’. Our initial remit was to study density variations of calcified tissues by quantitative backscattered electron imaging (BSE-SEM), for which para-sagittal (vertical) bone slices were embedded in PMMA and block surfaces micro-milled and/or polished [Boyde & Jones. Clin Rheumatol 14: 598, 1995]. More recently, these samples were studied by 30μm resolution high-contrast resolution X-ray microtomography [XMT: QMUL MuCat3 scanner] 72h scanning time, giving exact correlation between BSE-SEM and XMT. For dataset upload on SketchFab datasets were converted into 3D meshes (at a reduced resolution) using Meshmixer.