Anatomy and Art

So I started to write a bit about the conference a few days back, while I was still in Baltimore.  Now that I’m home, I wanted to say a little more about the experience.  First of all, the event was held in a beautiful hotel, the Grand Tremont in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.  This is a quick shot I snapped with my laptop during one of the lectures.

And we saw most of the big lectures from that room.  That is where Linda Wilson-Pauwels gave her presidential address, encouraging participation and volunteerism within the AMI.  And directly after followed Juan Velasco from National Geographic.  I knew that National Geographic had a well deserved reputation for it’s imagery, but I really had no idea the level of work they were putting into keeping up that reputation.  Their process was fascinating to hear about.  In particular, I was surprised to learn that so many of their images start with the creation of a physical 3D form.  I just don’t know of anyone else doing that as part of their process toward their 2D images.

We also got a talk from animator Drew Berry that day.  His work is really some of the best out there  in the world of biomedical animation.  I’m just going to put up this piece of his work on malaria that’s up on YouTube here, in case you’re interested…

He’s also done some fantastic work with DNA, which looks like it is getting more widespread recognition and will be making it’s way into an experimental music video. One can’t help but wonder what getting these sorts of images into public consciousness does for mass understanding of how our bodies work. It seems like at least on some small level, even if unstudied, it would lend to some innate level of understanding.

We then broke into the business lunch, and further workshops for the day. The business lunch focused a lot on re-branding of the AMI as an organization. As a student member, I’m only allowed to listen in, and not vote on any of that, but it will be interesting to see where these efforts take us.

Over the course of the conference, I couldn’t help but be inspired by the talks that people were giving and think about things I might like to try when I got home. I definitely intend to do a little work with Zbrush and Mudbox while I still have student access to the Lynda.com tutorials. And I absolutely need to download the Molecular Maya plug in and start working with that. The creator, Gaël McGill was one of the speakers at the conference as well, and I very much enjoyed meeting him. I also found myself wondering if I wouldn’t perhaps be in a good position to give a talk about working with physical 3D forms and digital 3D forms and how knowledge in each area can benefit the other. And I found myself inspired to create a web forum for anaplastology patients and anaplastologists to share information and anecdotes with each other while listening to a talk about community building and branding by Katherine Jones of Milkshake Media which was behind the Livestrong campaign for the Lance Armstrong foundation. And it is most definitely time to re-cut my 3D Graphics and Animation Demo Reel to include both the blood vessel fly through animation and my now award winning animation on the BSSO and Osseous Genioplasty. I also need to add that award to my resume and well, I checked with my adviser and there isn’t anything I need to wait for before listing myself as a graduate of UIC’s program rather than a student seeking said degree, so that’s a fairly big change in the resume to make.

Yup, so plenty to do, and for starters, I finally got around to polishing up a still frame from my blood vessel animation to show as just an illustration. Here that is…

It’s been a great trip, and now it’s good to be home.

Ha!  My Sliding Filament animation broke 100,000 views on YouTube!!!
That’s so cool!

Hello Readers!  I am writing this time from the basement of a lovely little youth hostel in Baltimore, Oregon.  Yesterday wrapped up the final day of the 66th annual conference of the Association of Medical Illustrators.  As usual there were lots of ideas floating around, and a real wealth of knowledge spread across the attendees.  I have about a million things I’m excited to get back and try now, *and* I had the added good fortune of getting an award of merit for the new animation!

Thank you AMI for another wonderful opportunity, and I’m excited to be here another couple days and get to learn a little more about Johns Hopkins before I head back to Chicago.

Well, I am officially one week into being finished with my graduate work.  Well, I suppose that’s a very technical statement, as there are plenty of things for me to keep going with, but as far as my school is concerned, I am done.  And I must say it’s been a fine week.

And now, it’s time to pack up and get my things together for the annual AMI conference.  This time it is happening in Baltimore.  And I am particularly excited to be able to get a look at Johns Hopkins while I’m out there, specifically their anaplastology clinic.

I feel fortunate to have the opportunity to attend such a conference with such perfect timing after finishing up school.  I think this will be the perfect move to get my head into the task of finding a career, after so much time as a student again.  And it will be nice, getting to meet and talk with people without the pressures of academic assignments looming overhead.

In short, YAY!

Yesterday I finished a new painting.

This tree has been keeping me sane throughout my last weeks of grad school.  Thank you tree!  And yesterday I finally had time to finish it.

So hey, guess who just finished grad school…

Yeah, that’s right I did!

Well, I guess that makes it official.

I am printing copies of the paper right now (sorry trees), and as soon as this is done I’ll see about printing slides from my presentation, and then making some good note cards for everything that I want to say. Wish me luck!

I realize that I haven’t been writing as much here lately.  That’s mostly because I’ve been spending so much time working out the details of my my final paper for the upcoming defense of my masters degree.  It’s looking like I am going to present just next week, and it is overwhelming how much there is to get in order.  I’d like to post the whole paper here at some point, though I suppose I should look in to whether or not I’m going to submit it anywhere else before I go putting it up online.  Here is the abstract though, for those of you interested in what I’m up to these days…

ABSTRACT

There is a need for education materials for patients undergoing orthognathic surgery.  The problem of conveying intricate accurate anatomical information to patients presents a design challenge for creators of such educational materials. The goal of this project was to explore possibilities for using new advancements in 3D animation technology to improve understanding on the part of patients prior to surgery. Computed tomography (CT) scanning, surgical observation, 3D animation, editing software, and DVD authoring technologies were utilized in the creation of a 3D animation for patients preparing to under-go the bilateral sagittal split osteotomy of the mandible and osseous genioplasty surgical procedures.

Sitting at a current 29-32 pages (depending on whether or not you count the script that I’m including but haven’t placed yet), I believe this is by far the longest paper I’ve ever written.  And that’s all I’m gonna say about that for now, as I need to get back to all that academic sayin’ that’s got to get done already!

Ooooh, so here’s a really fun artist find. Chek out the work of Heidi Taillefer!

I must say I’m impressed.  What a fun combination of the anatomical and the mechanical all mixed together in these positively romantic sort of settings.  Neat!