SUMMARY
Outline drawings remain the standard currency of footprint illustration, but
their simplicity entails a tremendous loss of information. Analyses based
on such interpretive drawings, no matter how sophisticated, will always bear the
risk of reaching conclusions that cannot be substantiated from the original
material. Footprints of dinosaurs and other tetrapods warrant
illustration, recording, and analysis with all the detail that current
technology allows. Only when tracks can be captured in their entirety with
minimal distortion can we expect to synthesize meaningful interpretations of the
morphology, movement, and sedimentary interaction that created them.
Anaglyphs offer a compact, scale-independent format for combining the strengths
of each of the three available perceptual depth cues, and represent a step
toward taking paleoichnology away from its 2-D past and into the third
dimension.
