ArticleJournal of anatomy2017
A quantitative evaluation of physical and digital approaches to centre of mass estimation.
Article in Journal of anatomy, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers.
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Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed, 27 citations in OpenAlex.
- New perspectives on head and neck allometry and ecomorphology in tetrapods.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2026Review
- New perspectives on body size and shape evolution in dinosaurs.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2025Review
- Limb bone robusticity is coupled with mass distribution in terrestrial tetrapods.Royal Society open science · 2025Article
- Digital volumetric modeling reveals unique body plan experimentation in the Devonian tetrapodiScience · 2025Article
- Hindlimb biomechanics of Lagosuchus talampayensis (Archosauria, Dinosauriformes), with comments on skeletal morphology.Journal of anatomy · 2025Article
- When the lung invades: a review of avian postcranial skeletal pneumaticity.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Review
- Inertial coupling of the hummingbird body in the flight mechanics of an escape manoeuvre.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2024Article
- Testing the form-function paradigm: body shape correlates with kinematics but not energetics in selectively-bred birds.Communications biology · 2024Article
- Volumetric versus Element-scaling Mass Estimation and Its Application to Permo-Triassic Tetrapods.Integrative organismal biology (Oxford, England) · 2024Article
- Decoupling body shape and mass distribution in birds and their dinosaurian ancestors.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Static Stability and Swim Bladder Volume in the Bluegill Sunfish (Integrative organismal biology (Oxford, England) · 2023Article
- Body size, shape and ecology in tetrapods.Nature communications · 2022Article
- Quantifying avian inertial properties using calibrated computed tomography.The Journal of experimental biology · 2022Article
- A Whole-Body Musculoskeletal Model of the Mouse.IEEE access : practical innovations, open solutions · 2021Article
- Review
- Body and tail-assisted pitch control facilitates bipedal locomotion in Australian agamid lizards.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Centre of mass is a fundamental anatomical and biomechanical parameter. Knowledge of centre of mass is essential to inform studies investigating locomotion and other behaviours, through its implications for segment movements, and on whole body factors such as posture. Previous studies have estimated centre of mass position for a range of organisms, using various methodologies. However, few studies assess the accuracy of the methods that they employ, and often provide only brief details on their methodologies. As such, no rigorous, detailed comparisons of accuracy and repeatability within and between methods currently exist. This paper therefore seeks to apply three methods common in the literature (suspension, scales and digital modelling) to three 'calibration objects' in the form of bricks, as well as three birds to determine centre of mass position. Application to bricks enables conclusions to be drawn on the absolute accuracy of each method, in addition to comparing these results to assess the relative value of these methodologies. Application to birds provided insights into the logistical challenges of applying these methods to biological specimens. For bricks, we found that, provided appropriate repeats were conducted, the scales method yielded the most accurate predictions of centre of mass (within 1.49 mm), closely followed by digital modelling (within 2.39 mm), with results from suspension being the most distant (within 38.5 mm). Scales and digital methods both also displayed low variability between centre of mass estimates, suggesting they can accurately and consistently predict centre of mass position. Our suspension method resulted not only in high margins of error, but also substantial variability, highlighting problems with this method.
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