A fast GNU method to draw accurate scientific illustrations for taxonomy.

Giuseppe Montesanto

doi:10.3897/zookeys.515.9459

Abstract

Nowadays only digital figures are accepted by the most important journals of taxonomy. These may be produced by scanning conventional drawings, made with high precision technical ink-pens, which normally use capillary cartridge and various line widths. Digital drawing techniques that use vector graphics, have already been described in literature to support scientists in drawing figures and plates for scientific illustrations; these techniques use many different software and hardware devices. The present work gives step-by-step instructions on how to make accurate line drawings with a new procedure that uses bitmap graphics with the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP). This method is noteworthy: it is very accurate, producing detailed lines at the highest resolution; the raster lines appear as realistic ink-made drawings; it is faster than the traditional way of making illustrations; everyone can use this simple technique; this method is completely free as it does not use expensive and licensed software and it can be used with different operating systems. The method has been developed drawing figures of terrestrial isopods and some examples are here given.

Highlights

Aiming to express a concept or convey a message, the use of a picture is certainly a clearer and understandable way compared to a text-only description
First of all GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) has to be installed on a computer
Notes about installing GIMP on your computer are reported on the official GIMP website at the following URL: http:// www.gimp.org/docs/

Summary

Introduction

Aiming to express a concept or convey a message, the use of a picture is certainly a clearer and understandable way compared to a text-only description. Descriptions of new plant and animal taxa are always combined with figures and plates in order to illustrate the anatomical parts and body details. Such figures are of great value for species identifications. Line drawings are normally used for many species descriptions They can be produced by inexpensive means (ink and paper), as stated in the Council of Biology Editors’ guide, Illustrating Science: “A good pen and ink drawing is pleasing, informative and reproduces well, even on poor grades of paper”. When line drawing a body part, one usually makes it larger than requested by the size of the journal page in order to highlight details. Further notes on the preparation of illustrations for taxonomic papers are discussed in Mayr et al (1953)

Methods

Results

Conclusion