Anatomy and Art

Recently UIC held their annual competition called The Image of Research.  The idea is that graduate and professional degree seekers at UIC have the opportunity to submit images of aesthetic appeal along with the connection to that student’s research here at the university.  This year, one of my classmates, Annie Campbell, took third place with a piece she did for one of our classes illustrating the photoreceptors of the retina.

Just recently, the following article was released in the UIC news which includes an interview with her. It’s a fantastic piece, and Annie is an incredibly talented artist.

http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/uicnews/articledetail.cgi?id=14385

First place went to Sangyoon Lee for research being done to create a graphical computer interface with a very life like avatar, that can be rendered in real time allowing for real time interactions.  In fact, they’re even calling the project LifeLike.  So they submitted an image of the man they have been working on showing both the rendered side and also the wireframes.  It looks like they are getting some great results.

And second place went to Kristin Thomas for her image of an evaporating dish containing an arry of disks cut from PEGDA hydrogels synthesized in their lab.  This one is too far outside of my realms of expertise to be able to give much in the way of comment, but I will post the image nonetheless.

Congratulations to everyone who placed in this contest.  You’ve all created some great work!

So, last night I posted an example of a Flash interactive that I thought was cool.  Tonight I thought I’d go ahead and post the wireframes and screen flows I’ve been working on.  I *think* I’m doing this right.

First, the screenflow chart…

And once I had the screenflow down, I moved on to the wireframes.  Now as I understand it, these are drawings meant to express the layout of your interactive without the distraction of color.  The idea is to look at screen placement, and to create a map for the work to come.

In my case, I have come up with three images.  The first is a layout for how my welcome page will look.

The second is what the game would like like when the visitor first arrives at it, before anything has been clicked or moved.

And then the last image is a layout for how the individual pop-up windows will be handled.

Well, here’s hoping I’m on the right track with this!  And remember, if any of these images are too fuzzy to read the text from, you can always click on them which in this case will make them bigger, but always seems to make them clearer regardless of any resizing I’ve done.

So we’ve been doing some work with Flash this summer, and we’re designing basic Flash interactives.  It sounds like they are a lot of work to put together, especially if you don’t know what you’re doing.  Personally I’m still mind boggled at the idea that I sometimes have to use two equal signs to mean something is really equal.  My plan is to put together a little interactive where the user gets to poke at a brain and learn a brief overview of how the various areas are organized up there.  So far I only have a screen flow chart, so that’s only a little bit exciting.  But I have found myself thinking back on an interactive a teacher showed us in our first year with the program called Mouse Party.  The more I learn about what goes into these, the more impressed I am with this.  It’s fun, it’s creative, and it’s informative. And the animation is so stylish and clear!

http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/addiction/drugs/mouse.html

Check it out!

Interesting article about an anaplastology case…

http://www.oregonlive.com/health/index.ssf/2010/07/chrissy_steltz_tries_on_proste.html

It sounds like the injury itself was a terrible tragedy, but the work done for her has been extensive and good.

I just thought this image was neat and I had to share…

Today was ocular day in the anaplastology lab with Bob!  First we painted irises and pupils.  Then we chose from a drawer full of template shapes and made a mold.  Typically with a patient you would do this from an impression.  You can actually use algenate right on the eyeball itself.  After we made molds, we mixed up acrylic and put it all together.  The iris I chose to use is currently curing in low heat water and pressure, but here was my second choice.  I would have gone with this one, but I rushed the pupil at the end there, and went back to the previous one.

It’s actually kind of tricky painting a light brown eye.  White tends to come up blue.  And yellow often comes out green.  So you have to play up the red and ochre.  You actually use basic oil paints along with a liquid we just called monopoly.  It’s technically acrylic but at a very strong monomer to polymer ratio.

I’m looking forward to seeing what comes out tomorrow!

I’ve always had an appreciation for skulls.  From back when they were a sign of good horror movie, to today now that I study them.  The more you learn about the skull, the more elegant it’s design reveals itself to be.  Bones in general are like that I suppose, but the skull in particular is just beautiful.

Here are a few of my own images from one of the skulls I had at home for a while

more of these can be found at http://snapshotgenius.com/gallery/skull-A188

There’s a sale this week at Cafe Press, which means there’s a sale at the Anatomy and Art store!  Remember you can pop on over to the store any time by clicking on the Merchandise link in the upper right corner of your screen.  Check it out!

We were asked to sketch out the eye and nose with anatomical labels for my anaplastology class this week.  I thought I’d share my drawing here.

I know it’s a little busy.  But if you’re studying these structures too, hopefully it can help us both.  If you’re having trouble reading any of the labels, try clicking on the image for a clearer view.  My references include Netter’s Anatomy Flash Cards, Fundamentals of Facial Prosthetics, The Anatomy Coloring Book, and Wikipedia.

As I’ve mentioned here before, I’ve been working on learning Flash lately. In my own development with the program, I just figured out how to create a button to stop an animation and play it again today. So I’ve still got a ways to go there.  But just tonight, I stumbled across a far more advanced interactive.

The interactive is one that covers the muscles of facial expression.  It’s called  Artnatomy, or if you choose to view it in Spanish, Artnatomia.

Now first of all I’m psyched to see a project like this expressed bilingually.  I may well be coming back to it for reference, when I attempt my own Spanish translation with the animation I am doing for my project research.  A few of the muscles right around the nose look to be labeled a little bit differently than I remember them from my own studies, but I think this may simply be a matter of translation, or even using different sources in Spain.

Secondly, I like the artwork, and the ability to toggle between a schematic or naturalistic model, and with or without the skull.   The site’s design puts a few steps between you and getting to the application, but just follow from the home page through your selected language, and into the application, where you will most likely want to view “Level II” so that you can get the various emotional expressions tied to these muscles.  If you are like me, you’ll spend at least a few moments thinking but hey, sometimes doubt looks differently than that, or people don’t always look the same when they’re about to cry, but I guarantee you that you won’t find a single text book covering the same material that doesn’t make you question similarly.  And once you get past that natural argumentativeness, I think you’ll agree that this is a really cool interactive project they’ve put together here.