1. Understanding the three-dimensional (3D) surface complexity of biological systems can yield fundamental insights into how organisms interact with their environments. The wealth of current imaging technologies permits detailed 3D visualization of biological surfaces on the macro-, micro- and nanoscale. Analysis of the reconstructed 3D images, however, remains a challenging proposition.
2. Here, we present QuSTo, a versatile, open-source program developed in Python to quantify surface topography from profiles obtained from 3D scans. The program calculates metrics that quantify surface roughness and the size (i.e. height and length) and shape (i.e. convexity constant (CC), skewness (S_k) and kurtosis (K_u)) of surface structures.
3. We demonstrate the applicability of our program by quantifying the surface topography of snake skin based on newly collected data from white light 3D scans of the ventrum and dorsum of 32 species. To illustrate the utility of QuSTo for evolutionary and ecological research, we test whether snake species that occur in different habitats differ in skin surface structure using phylogenetic comparative analyses.
4. The QuSTo application is free, open-source, user-friendly and easily adapted for specific analysis requirements (available in GitHub, github.com/GMLatUCDavis/QuSTo) and is compatible with 3D data obtained with different scanning techniques, for example, white light and laser scanning, photogrammetry, gel-based stereo-profilometry. Scientists from various disciplines can use QuSTo to examine the surface properties of an array of animal and plant species for both fundamental and applied biological and bioinspired research.

中文翻译：

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从 3D 扫描量化生物系统的表面形貌

1. 了解生物系统的三维 (3D) 表面复杂性可以对生物如何与其环境相互作用产生基本的了解。当前丰富的成像技术允许在宏观、微观和纳米尺度上对生物表面进行详细的 3D 可视化。然而，对重建的 3D 图像的分析仍然是一个具有挑战性的命题。
2. 在这里，我们展示了QuSTo，这是一个用 Python 开发的多功能开源程序，用于从 3D 扫描获得的轮廓量化表面形貌。该程序计算度量定量表达表面粗糙度和尺寸（即高度和长度）和形状（即凸常数（CC），偏斜度（小号_ķ）和峰度（ķ _û表面结构））。
3. 我们根据新收集的 32 种蛇腹和背部白光 3D 扫描数据量化蛇皮的表面形貌，证明了我们程序的适用性。为了说明QuSTo在进化和生态研究中的实用性，我们使用系统发育比较分析来测试出现在不同栖息地的蛇类是否在皮肤表面结构上有所不同。
4. 所述QuSTo应用是免费的，开源的，用户友好和容易地适用于具体的分析要求（提供的GitHub，github.com/GMLatUCDavis/QuSTo），并且是用不同的扫描技术获得的3D数据，例如兼容，白色光和激光扫描、摄影测量、基于凝胶的立体轮廓测量。来自不同学科的科学家可以使用QuSTo检查一系列动植物物种的表面特性，以进行基础和应用生物学和仿生研究。