About XROMM

X-ray Reconstruction of Moving Morphology (XROMM) is a 3D imaging technology, developed at Brown University, for visualizing rapid skeletal movement in vivo.

XROMM combines 3D models of bone morphology with movement data from biplanar x-ray video to create highly accurate (±0.1 mm) re-animations of the 3D bones moving in 3D space.

Rapid bone motion, such as during bird flight, frog jumping, and human running, can be visualized and quantified with XROMM.

3D models of pig skull and lower jaw from a CT scan. XROMM requires independent models of each bone for re-animation. Models created in Amira, cleaned in Geomagic, and animated in Autodesk Maya. Animation by E. Brainerd.

News & Announcements

Upcoming Short Course:
2013 Brown XROMM Summer Short Course

June 3-7, 2013
Brown University
Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
Providence, RI, 02912, USA

Course description | Application form

More news & announcements

Project Showcase

Duck Feeding
Picture of mallard duck filter feeding
Kinematics of the quadrate bone during feeding in mallard ducks
In this study we are using X-ray Reconstruction of Moving Morphology (XROMM) to study the movements of the quadrate bone and their effects on articulating bones during filter feeding in mallard ducks, Anas platyrhynchos.
Fish Bite Force
Diagram of experimental setup for force-length performance measurements
Gape-specific bite force and prey-size specific predator performance in the snail-eating black carp
In this study we used X-ray Reconstruction of Moving Morphology (XROMM) to examine biting performance in a snail-eating carp species, the black carp, Mylopharyngodon piceus.
Jump Cut
Picture of example frame from the Autoscoper markerless tracking software
Biomechanics of male and female ACL-intact and ACL-reconstructed athletes during a jump-cut maneuver
In this study we used X-ray Reconstruction of Moving Morphology (XROMM) to compare kinematic and kinetic knee measurements during a jump-cut maneuver.

More projects

In the News

Size of lunch dictates force of crunch
Posted Feb. 12, 2013 on news.brown.edu. Story by David Orenstein.
XROMM Project: Fish Bite Force
Additional coverage by: news.science360.gov | eurekalert.org | sciencedaily.com | ria.ru/science | scienceblog.com | redorbit.com | nsf.gov/news | sciencenewsline.com | esciencenews.com | phys.org/news

Funding Acknowledgements

We thank the Office of the Vice President for Research at Brown University, the RIH Orthopaedic Foundation, and the Bushnell Research and Graduate Education Fund for essential seed funding at the start of the XROMM development project. The W.M. Keck Foundation generously provided funding for the development of biplanar videoradiography hardware, and in support of our interdisciplinary collaborative development of XROMM software. The Instrument Development for Biological Sciences Program at the US National Science Foundation provided funding for the development of low-cost x-ray hardware and XROMM software for comparative biomechanics research.

Some material on this web site is based on work supported by the National Science Foundation. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.