DEPARTMENT OF BIOMEDICAL COMMUNICATIONS

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO MISSISSAUGA

HSC404H5S LEC0101
Advanced Visual Media for Anthropological Data
Course Outline - Winter 2024
Class Location & Time Wed, 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM CC 3160
Instructor Shehryar Saharan
Office Location CC 3160
Office Hours Mondays 2-5 PM or by appointment
E-mail Address s.saharan@utoronto.ca
Course Web Site https://q.utoronto.ca

Teaching Assistant Remi Gao

E-mail Address lingyan.gao@mail.utoronto.ca

Course Description
This course examines the visual representation of physical evidence in archaeology, and physical/biological anthropology.
Photography, traditional illustration, and digital rendering are used to produce scientific graphics in support of published research.
Through practical and analytical exercises students will gain an understanding of the media and techniques used to visually
represent data.

Prerequisite:

(HSC200H5 and one of the following courses: HSC300H5 or HSC301H5 or HSC302H5 or HSC307H5) or permission of instructor

(SCI)
Distribution Requirement: SCI

The UTM Calendar states that students who lack the prerequisites for a course can be deregistered at any time

Objectives
Upon completion of this course, students are expected to be able to:

critically analyze scientific illustrations and their efficacy when used in support of anthropological research;
demonstrate core knowledge of the conventions of scientific illustration;
demonstrate knowledge of the technical requirements involved in digital image creation;
competently create line-drawings of anthropological evidence from photographic reference;
competently represent three-dimensional form when drawing samples of physical evidence;
create and manipulate 3D structural data of objects from reference;
sufficient knowledge of current production standards and client communication requirements;
demonstrate an understanding of assigned readings by appropriate application of content in discussions, tests, and
assignments.

Required Textbook and Materials

Required Readings

See the course schedule at the end of this document for readings. PDFs of the required readings will be posted to Quercus in the
relevant weekly module.

Required Materials

Two technical pens (Sakura Pigma Micron 05 and 03)

Layout bond paper (Borden & Riley No.37 Boris Marker Layout Pad recommended)
Conte à Paris Pierre Noire Pencil Black B
Sandpaper pad

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 Xacto knife or single edge razor blade
Small kneaded eraser
Drawing pencil (HB or similar) and eraser (white vinyl or Pink Pearl)
A portable digital data storage device (eg. 8GB flash drive) or access to online storage is recommended

Assessment and Grading Policies

Type Description Due Date Weight
Assignment In-class exercises (7 x 3 points) On-going 21%
Quiz Reading/Technical quizzes (5 x 3 points) On-going 15%
Assignment Assignment 1: Stone tool Illustration 2024-02-07 20%
Assignment Assignment 2: Ushabti illustration 2024-03-06 20%
Assignment Assignment 3: Composite osteological illustration for publication 2024-04-03 24%
Total 100%

Notes on Assessment Items

In-class exercises (x 7) (21%) Ongoing (see class schedule on Quercus)

Exercises to complete during class time; these are to be completed the day they are assigned and submitted at the end of class
through Quercus (unless otherwise noted). Late exercises will NOT be accepted.

Readings Quizzes (x 5) (15%) Ongoing (see class schedule on Quercus)

At the beginning of class; the subject matter will be related to the reading assigned in the previous class, and can only be
completed in class during the set period. If class is missed for any reason, an oral exam will be the only way to make up for the
absence.

Assignment #1: Stone tool illustration (20%)

Arrange, light, and render a 3D digital model of two stone tools in Blender. Renders of the tools will serve as reference images for
a vector illustration, adhering to the conventions of stone-tool illustration. Ripple marks and cortex will be rendered in ink lines
and stippling on black and white prints of the tools.

Assignment #2: Artifact illustration (ushabti) (20%)

Arrange, light, and render two views of a 3D digital model of an ushabti in Blender. Renders of the ushabti will serve as reference
images for a vector illustration of the artifact. using Affinity Designer. A print of the line work will be completed with ink stippling.

Assignment #3: Composite osteological illustration for publication (24%)

Arrange, light, and render three views of a 3D digital model of the mandible of Homo naledi with Blender. Renders of the mandible
will serve as reference images for renderings of the artifact using a coquille board and carbon pencil.

Teaching Methods and Academic Supports

You have enrolled in this course and your attendance is expected at lectures, tutorials, labs, tests, and exams.

Lectures:

Most classes will consist of about an hour-long lecture on topics listed in the course outline. The remainder of the class (~2 hours)
will involve a variety of technique demonstrations, illustration exercises, and seminar discussions. In-class consultations may also
take place during this time.

Procedures and Rules

E-Mail Policy
The University's official method of correspondence with students is through their University of Toronto e-mail accounts. It is the
student's responsibility to keep his/her @mail.utoronto.ca account active and check it on a regular basis.

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 All e-mails from students must include your full name and student number as well as have the course code in the subject line.

Re-Mark Policy
Requests for re-evaluation of course work must be made in writing to the instructor no later than one month following the return of
the work. Re-evaluation may result in a grade increase, decrease, or no change.

Religious Observance
Information about the University's Policy on Scheduling of Classes and Examinations and Other Accommodations for Religious
Observances is at http://www.viceprovoststudents.utoronto.ca/publicationsandpolicies/guidelines/religiousobservances.htm

Classroom Management
Students are expected to come to class on time, turn off cell phones and pagers and to use laptops in class for note-taking only (not
for web surfing, email, viewing movies etc.)

Attendance and Late Assignments

Attendance is critical for success in this course: the practical work you do in the labs is necessary to complete your assignments
successfully. PDF files of the lecture slides will be posted before each class . Please be advised that the intellectual property rights
in the material referred to on this syllabus (and posted to Quercus) may belong to the course instructor or other persons. You are not
authorized to reproduce or distribute such material, in any form or medium, without the prior consent of the intellectual property
owner. Violation of intellectual property rights may be a violation of the law and University of Toronto policies and may entail
significant repercussions for the person found to have engaged in such act. If you have any questions regarding your right to use the
material in a manner other than as set forth in the syllabus, please speak to your instructor.

All assignments are due at the dates and times specified above. Work submitted after the due date and time will be considered late.
Submission of late work will affect your final grade at a rate of 10% for every day (including weekends) that your work is late.
Missing assignments will be given a grade of zero.

Digital files

Corrupted data files are not an excuse for late work. You are expected to back up your work appropriately and verify that submitted
files are intact. If you submit a corrupted or un-openable data file, your assignment will be subject to the late penalty of 10% per
day until an intact file is submitted in its place.

Data backup

All students are responsible for the safety and integrity of their data. You must make regular and complete backups of your work in
progress, whether via e-mail to yourself, a second hard drive, or USB key. You should also keep backups of the submitted in-class
exercises in case your Quercus upload fails. Failure to hand in an assignment due to hardware failure, data corruption or data loss
will result in a grade of 0 for that assignment (it's the 21st century equivalent of "the dog ate my homework" and is inexcusable).

Email Communication

The University's official method of correspondence with students is through their University of Toronto e-mail accounts. It is the
student's responsibility to keep his/her @mail.utoronto.ca account active and check it on a regular basis. All e-mails must include
your full name and student number as well as have the course code in the subject line.

All U of T students are required to have a valid U of T email address and to use it for any correspondence with instructors. Your U
of T email address is the address we will use for any correspondence with you. In other words, we will not respond to any email sent
from a non-utoronto account. Forwarding your utoronto.ca email to a Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo or other type of email account is not
advisable. In some cases, messages from utoronto.ca addresses sent to Hotmail, Gmail or Yahoo accounts are filtered as junk mail
by those mail servers, which means that emails about the course may end up in your spam or junk mail folder.

UTM Statement on Academic Integrity

UTM wishes to remind students that they are expected to adhere to the Code of Behaviour on Academic Matters regardless of the
course delivery method. UTM expects that students will maintain the same academic honesty and integrity both in a classroom
setting and online. Potential academic offences related to digital contexts include, but are not limited to:

Examples of offences for which you will be penalized include (but are not limited to):

Accessing unauthorized resources (search engines, chat rooms, Reddit, etc.) for assessments.
Using technological aids (e.g. software) beyond what is listed as permitted in an assessment.

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 Posting test, essay, or exam questions to message boards or social media.
Creating, accessing, and sharing assessment questions and answers in virtual "course groups."
Working collaboratively, in-person or online, with others on assessments that are expected to be completed individually.
Accessing unauthorized resources (search engines, chat rooms, Reddit, etc.) for assessments.
Using technological aids (e.g. software) beyond what is listed as permitted in an assessment.
Posting test, essay, or exam questions to message boards or social media.
Creating, accessing, and sharing assessment questions and answers in virtual "course groups."
Working collaboratively, in-person or online, with others on assessments that are expected to be completed individually.

All suspected cases of academic dishonesty will be investigated following procedures outlined in the Code of Behaviour on
Academic Matters. If you have questions or concerns about what constitutes appropriate academic behaviour or appropriate
research and citation methods, you are expected to seek out additional information on academic integrity from your instructor or
from other institutional resources.

Visual work poses specific challenges when it comes to academic integrity. Lectures will cover copyright law as well as strategies
to ensure that your visual work is entirely original. Visual plagiarism, like textual plagiarism, will not be tolerated and if detected,
will be reported as an academic offense.

Missed Term Work and Absence Declarations

You are expected to complete and submit all assignments on time.

Students may use the ACORN Absence Declaration Tool only once per academic term, for a single absence period of up to
seven consecutive days. Access to the Absence Declaration Tool can be found in ACORN. Students may use this one-time
absence declaration if they miss an academic obligation during the term at their discretion for circumstances such as, but not limited
to: illness or injury; a personal or family emergency (e.g., unanticipated and unavoidable beyond the student’s control);
bereavement; chronic health matter; documented disability; or other University sponsored event (e.g., field trip, award ceremony,
university athletic obligations). The one-time declaration is not intended to be used for: personal social obligations; travel not
related to academic programs; technological issues; avoidance of assessments or deadlines; and, any matters that require a
petition (e.g., final exam/final assessments). Please note that students may also not be able to use this one-time absence
declaration for some assessments in a course, such as a test or a quiz, in which case the student would be required to provide
supporting documentation and the specifics of the required documentation will be outlined in the course syllabus. For any other
absences during the term, the student must follow the missed work policy outlined in the course syllabus and may be asked
to provide supporting documentation (e.g., Verification of Student Illness or Injury Form-VOI). If the instructor is requesting
medical documentation, please provide this to the course administrator or Diane Matias in Room DV3057.

Documentation and Procedures:

1. Declare your absence on ACORN and contact your professor via email within 48 hours of the missed quiz/test/assignment.
2. If you have already used your one-time declaration of absence for the semester or if you are not eligible for it as described in
the above paragraph, submit an explanation in writing within one week, detailing the University-approved circumstances,
beyond your control, that caused you to miss the quiz/test/assignment. The explanation must be accompanied by proper
documentation (originals, in hard copy) and should be submitted to the Department of Biology to Diane Matias
(d.matias@utoronto.ca). Include your name, your student number, your @mail.utoronto e-mail address, your phone number,
the course designator/ code, and a description of the item you missed (e.g., Quiz #1). The standard Verification of Student
Illness or Injury is the appropriate documentation to submit if you were ill.

The written explanation and documentation that you submit represents an appeal from you, requesting the opportunity to make up
that portion of your grade in some other manner. If an appeal is not received, or if the appeal is deemed unacceptable, you will
receive a grade of zero for the item you missed. If the appeal is granted - that is, your reason for missing the test is considered
acceptable - then a mechanism for making up the missed item will be offered.

If your appeal is accepted, it may be considered appropriate to do a weighted average of your other term marks to make up for the
missed item, rather than setting a makeup date. If a makeup is offered, the date will be determined by the course instructor, and you
will be notified. The general format and content of the makeup will be similar to the original test, but the specific format and
content may not be the same.

Academic Integrity
The code of Behaviour on Academic Matters states that:

The University and its members have a responsibility to ensure that a climate that might encourage, or conditions that
might enable, cheating, misrepresentation or unfairness not be tolerated. To this end all must acknowledge that seeking
credit or other advantages by fraud or misrepresentation, or seeking to disadvantage others by disruptive behaviour is
unacceptable, as is any dishonesty or unfairness in dealing with the work or record of a student.
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 - University of Toronto Mississauga Academic Calendar

It is your responsibility as a student at the University of Toronto, to familiarize yourself with, and adhere to, both the Code of
Student Conduct and the Code of Behaviour on Academic Matters.

This means, first and foremost, that you should read them carefully.

The Code of Student Conduct is available from the U of T Mississauga website (Registrar > Academic Calendar > Codes
and Policies) or in your print version of the Academic Calendar.
The Code of Behaviour on Academic Matters is available from the U of T Mississauga website (Registrar > Academic
Calendar > Codes and Policies) or in your print version of the Academic Calendar.
Another helpful document that you should read is How Not To Plagiarize, by M. Proctor.

Other Resources
AccessAbility
The University accommodates students with disabilities who have registered with the AccessAbility Resource Centre. Please let me
know in advance, preferable in the first week of class, if you will require any accommodation on these grounds. To schedule a
registration appointment with a disability advisor, please call the centre at 905-569-4699 or e-mail at: access.utm@utoronto.ca.
http://www.utm.utoronto.ca/access/

Robert Gillespie Academic Skills Centre

Students can visit the Academic Skills Centre to consult with one of its strategists about understanding learning style, developing
study plans for upcoming tests/exams, or discussing papers. Special Diagnostic Assessments are also offered and are designed to
help you learn exactly where you stand with respect to critical academic skills.
http://www.utm.utoronto.ca/asc

UTM Library (Hazel McCallion Academic Learning Centre)

The University of Toronto boasts the biggest academic library in Canada and the second biggest in North America. Various services
are available to students at the UTM Library and across the UofT library system. Services including borrowing, interlibrary loans,
online references, laptop loans and the RBC Learning Commons. For more information, visit http://library.utm.utoronto.ca.

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 Course Schedule
Week Date Lecture topic Demo/Practical Readings for next week Quiz Items due

1 10 JaI Introduction Working in 3D: 6 Major Breakthroughs in Hunter-Gatherer No Exercise 1:

Reassembling the hand of Tools. 2019. www.history.com Assembled hand
Homo naledi model render
Hodges, E. (ed). 1989. The Guild
Handbook of Scientific Illustration, pp.
394-401. Van Nostrand Reinhold, NY.

2 17 Jan Lithic Working in 3D: Lighting
Technology and an object in Blender and
Illustration rendering an image. Using
the stone tool 3D file, light
the object in preparation
for illustration.
Banning, E. B., 2003. The Archaeologist's No Exercise 2:
Laboratory. The Analysis of Archeological Digital-rendered
Data; Kluwer Academic Publishers, stone tool
Hingham, MA.
Taylor, Conrad. 2003. "Line Thickness, a
Means of Expression By Varying the
Thickness of Lines and Outlines as We
Draw," 1-14.

3 24 Jan Line drawing Traditional Media: Pencil Adkins, L. 2009. Archaeological Yes Exercise 3:
and the and ink, showing form Illustration. Cambridge University Press. Stippling exercise
representation with lines and stipples
of form Assignment
Working in 3D: Blender 1(a): Blender file
file with stone tool, with stone tool,
lighting, and renders lighting, and
renders

4 31 Feb History of Assignment 1 rough Birrell, M. 1991. What is an Ushabti? Yes Assignment 1(b):
artifact draft check-in Ancient History Resources for Teachers; Stone tool
collection and North Ryde Vol. 21, Iss. 3, (Jan 1, 1991): sketches with
illustration 152. shading
breakdown

5 7 Feb Ancient Egypt: Working in 3D: Blender Yes Assignment 2:

Ushabtis file with multiple cameras, Blender file with
lighting, and renders multiple cameras,
lighting, and
renders

Assignment 1:
Final Due

6 14 Feb Designing for Patterns in Illustrator No Exercise 4: Filled

clarity stratigraphy with
patterns

- 21 Feb Reading Week Quellec, Jean Loïc Le, Frédérique No

Duquesnoy, and Claudia Defrasne. 2015.
"Digital Image Enhancement with
DStretch®: Is Complexity Always
Necessary for Efficiency?" Digital
Applications in Archaeology and Cultural
Heritage 2 (2-3).

Elsevier:55-67.

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 7 28 Feb Colour from a Photoshop: Revealing Honeycutt, Chris M.E., Roy E. Plotnick, Yes Exercise 5:
technical hidden elements in a and Fabien Kenig. 2014. "Breaking Free Revealed images
perspective picture. from the Matrix: Segmentation of
Fossil Images." Palaeontologia Electronica Assignment 2:
17 (3):1-18. Check-in

8 6 Mar Segmentation: 3D Slicer: Extract data No Exercise 6:

2D image from a series of CT-scan Extracted
analysis and 2D DICOM images. DICOM file to
datasets Blender

Assignment 2:
Final Due

9 13 Mar Bias and From 2D to 3D and back Sapirstein, Philip, and Sarah Murray. 2017. No Exercise 7:
convention in to 2D: Render and "Establishing Best Practices for Coquille demo
depictions of enhance the reconstructed Photogrammetric Recording During
fossil hominids DICOM model. Archaeological Fieldwork." Journal of
Field Archaeology 42 (4). Taylor &
Francis:337-50.

10 20 Mar Photogrammetry TBD Yes Assignment 3a:

and laser Layout plan,
scanning to illustration
digitize objects shading plan,
and sites coquille demo

11 27 Mar Maps and

mapmaking

12 3 Apr Wrap-up and Assignment 3:

Critique Final Due

Last Date to drop course from Academic Record and GPA is March 11, 2024.

Every attempt will be made to follow this syllabus, but its content are subject to change, according to the rules as outlined in the
UTM Instructor's Handbook, section 3.2.2.

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