The Rest of My Trip In A Nutshell

Since my last entry, my computer died and I was traveling quite a bit so I lived without the internet for a while. It revived itself a week and half later like nothing happened. No one ever figured out what went wrong, but I spent a week backing everything up “just in case” it dies permanently.

During this period, I traveled for one more week in California visiting various people and attending events, went back to Chicago to pack, and drove to Virginia to settle for my internship at the Smithsonian for the next four months. After meeting lots of artists and scientists and traveling across the country, it’s time to settle down once again to focus on getting my degree.

Today began the first day of my internship, but first, descriptions and images from the time my computer died, and the week before that:

6/1: Aesthetic Prosthetics
Visited “Aesthetic Prosthetics,” an anaplastology clinic located in Pasadena. Spoke to Stefan Knauss, co-owner of the clinic and alumni from the same program I went through at UIC, about materials, techniques, and challenges of opening a business in the field of anaplastology. Mr. Knauss showed me a few prosthetic arms which were quite impressive:

6/5: DreamWorks
Visited the DreamWorks studio in Glendale, CA. It took a while for the visitor’s pass to get approved, but my contact Shannon T. (whom I met through this blog) and his coworkers eventually got me in. I had a nice chat with Shannon before he took me on a tour around the studio to see the flow of the production process.

6/7-6/8: visiting Ed Ross and Sandy Ross
I flew to San Francisco and took a ferry to Marin County before meeting up with entomologist Ed Ross and his wife Sandy Ross. Dr. Ross is now 94 years old and still actively publishing. Sandy made goose eggs for breakfast. Notice the size of this yolk!

6/10: Stanford Lab and phone interview with Anatomical Travelogue
On this date I visited Dr. Paul Brown’s at Stanford University, who took me on a special tour of the medical campus and gave me an in-depth look at the medical visualization works taking place at Stanford. Special thanks to Sarah H., one of Dr. Brown’s interns and my former classmate, for giving me a detailed look at the current works.

This morning I also had a phone interview with Anatomical Travelogue, a medical 3D visualization company based in New York. The interview was for a short-term contract work this summer that created a major schedule conflict due to my prior commitment to the Smithsonian, so in the end it didn’t work out. During this interview, anything that could go wrong did (of course I tried to remained calm and maintain my professionalism at the time, but now that it’s over, I can share this with the rest of you):
1) my phone died; I left my phone adapter in San Francisco and would not be able to charge my phone for another day
2) my computer was still non-functional so I couldn’t send the additional images requested (eventually I pulled images from my e-mail attachments, which didn’t include all the best works)
3) I said things that I thought were true at the time, but later found out I was wrong

I think the schedule conflict was the major reason things didn’t work out, but the other events left me mortified.

Lesson learned. When everything goes wrong, you just have to treat it like a learning experience

6/12: California Academy of Sciences and de Young Museum
On this gloomy San Francisco day, I went with a friend to check out the relatively new Cal Academy building and the nearby de Young Museum. Here I am, standing on top of the “living roof” of the Cal Academy of Sciences.

6/16: Molecular Graphics Lab
Drove two and half hours from Pasadena to La Jolla to visit the Molecular Graphics Lab. I found out about this lab through the 2008 AMI conference when lab director Dr. Arthur Olson and graduate student/medical illustrator Graham Johnson lectured on the benefits of using physical molecular models as research or educational tools. Dr. Olson, Graham Johnson, and other professors and students I met in the lab showed me different processes involved in making both digital and physical molecular models.
Above: Rapid prototyping machine printing an array of molecules.
Below: The finished molecules.
Above: A display case filled with molecular models.
Below: Comparing relative sizes of molecules.

6/19: Huntington Library, corpse flower blooming
When news of the blooming corpse flower reached us, we decided to visit and smell the odor. A day too late, the flower already wilted and the smell had reduced from the powerful “rotten meat” to a weak “rotten vegetable” smell.

6/20-6/21: IMATS (International Make-Up Artist Trade Show)
First thing at the show, I give prosthetic make-up a try.
Below: applying spirit gum to skin

Below: Bullet hole on skin with fake blood. Move one more foot away and you won’t see the edges anymore.Below: Airbrush demoBelow: Museum area showing masks and props from movies.Below: Student competition (second day, fantasy make-up)

Would You Work For Exposure Alone?

According to this New York Times article, Google invited artists to design “skins” for customizable Google Chrome pages with no pay in exchange for massive exposure. Many artists are less than pleased by this offer. What are your thoughts? Feel free to post in the comments section.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/15/business/media/15illo.html?_r=2

Thanks Ian for this link.

UCSD and the EEG Cap

Last week, in San Diego, I visited the Swartz Center for Computational Neuroscience where two of my uncles work. This highly productive lab is balanced by a relaxing atmosphere, flexible work hours, and a daily afternoon tea time. I got a tour of the facilities and was introduced via slide shows and video clips on the latest EEG technology being developed by the lab. Years ago when I was a high school intern at the lab, I remember observing a technician scraping the subject’s scalp while setting up for an experiment. Earlier this month, while participating in an experiment at the University of Illinois, this cap is all I had to wear:

Above and Below: Myself wearing an EEG cap at the University of Illinois. It is apparent based on the picture below that movement is restricted.

Although much of the procedure was simplifed compared to a few years ago, the subject’s movement is still confined by the equipment and there is still a need for putting EEG gel into the electrode holder on the subject’s head to achieve good conductivity. Now, scientists at the Swartz Center for Computational Neuroscience are taking a step forward to facilitate the subject’s ability to move. Additionally, they are experimenting with dry electrodes to measure EEG signals without using conductive gel. I also witnessed the acquired EEG signals being sent wirelessly to a cell phone through Bluetooth (for additional information, see http://sccn.ucsd.edu/~jung/bci.html). It will be interesting to see where the technology goes in just a few more years.

The Getty

My first weekend vacationing in California, I went to The Getty Center with some friends. The Getty Center is an art museum in Los Angeles with an exquisite collection in Western Art. We only stayed a few hours, but I especially enjoyed the works on modern photography. Located on top of a mountain, its architecture and view is like no other. Absolutely breathtaking. Parking is $10 but admission is free. From the parking garage, you have the option to take a tram or a 15 minute hike up to the museum.

Above: Standing in front of the entrance.

Above: The back end of The Getty overlooking the city of Los Angeles.

Above: Lots of cacti, also at the back end of the museum.

If this is somewhere you would like to visit, plan at least a full day visit. Parking can be slow depending time of day or week.

1200 Getty Center Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90049
(310)440-7300

Sunday, Tuesday-Friday: 10am – 5:30pm
Saturday: 10am – 9pm

(There is no admission requirements for The Getty “Center.” The Getty “Villa” in Pacific Palisades, another must-see place, is also free but does require tickets.)

Papyrus

From xkcd.com:

http://xkcd.com/590/

Chicago Art Institute Modern Wing

If you haven’t yet seen the newly opened Modern Wing at the Art Institute of Chicago, do so now. The Art Institute offers free admission until Friday May 22. The architecture integrates seemlessly with the Millenium Park across the street via the new pedestrian bridge. The bridge is said to be modeled after a ship’s hull, and experience tells me that it can feel like one on a windy day too. On the top, the bridge leads to a cafe with outdoor seating and a modern style balcony overlooking the park.  The modern art collection doesn’t suit my taste but the architecture is amazing and I highly recommend.

Museum hours are:
Monday–Wednesday, 10:30–5:00
Thursday, 10:30–8:00
Friday, 10:30–5:00
Saturday–Sunday, 10:00–5:00

Admission is free until Friday May 22. After May 22, admission is free on Thursdays 5:00-8:00. It is also possible to get free admission any day by checking out a museum pass at any Chicago Public Library.

Random Thoughts; Book Chapter and Working with Engineers

I’m not really sure how things get done. I’d say right now I’m in limbo–having finished taking classes but not yet fulfilled all graduation requirements. Still three more days of internship left before leaving for semi-vacation, and all this time while trying to pack, see friends, and work on a side illustration project. A week after returning, I’ll be packing again to go to another internship, this time to the other side of the country.

This illustration project I’m working on is part of a to-be-published book chapter. All the illustrations are diagrammatic, and for the most part they are already drawn. My job is simply to increase readability and make sure everything fits the publication requirements. Unfortunately, the images did not contain layers so the simple changes involve retracing a large portion of the original image. I’m also learning more than I expected to about working with engineers’ conventions.

Unlike illustrators, most engineers use different software to produce diagrams. The reasons are completely valid, but sometimes that makes it more difficult for illustrators to make all the necessary changes quickly. While designers would most likely format text through InDesign, for this project I was presented with a LaTeX document. This resulted in a day spent uninstalling an old version of MikTeX that somehow made its way to my laptop years ago, downloading and installing the newer version, and figuring out how to compile.

Other challenges include gaining some knowledge about the subject matter you’re working with. While it’s not necessary to know all the details of what’s going on in the paper, it helps to have at least a general idea in order to make suggestions to the client on ways to convey the information better via graphics. I felt abonormally proud of myself when I caught a small error in the original diagram, and again when my client decided to trust me completely to convert the units on his graphs.

Perhaps the most overwhelming part of this project is the sheer number of diagrams that needs to be redrawn. In less than three weeks I’ve retraced and reformatted nearly fifty diagrams. Although not the most difficult, it is the largest number of pages per client I have worked with so far. I’ve heard from more experienced illustrators that a book deal is the way for illustrators to become extremely skilled at a certain media. Books usually require a consistent style. With enough diagrams to keep you busy for months, it’s not surprising that people can crank out illustrations pretty quickly near the end.

It’s time to go back to the diagrams, or maybe just pack a little more and sleep. Vacation is calling.

Skull Cleaning

On a recent volunteer trip to a state park, one of the other volunteers found a skull in the bushes. I decided to bring it home and add it to the collection. There was nothing to put it in except a used sandwich bag. When I took it out in the evening, it was covered with dirt from the ground and oil spots from the sandwich bag.

First, I wanted to sterilize the skull and get rid of large debris. I decided that boiling the skull was the quickest method. I had read about forensic anthropologists boiling parts to get rid of the muscle tissues, but was still a bit nervous about doing it. The image below shows the skull in a small stainless steel pot (part of a cookware set for children from IKEA, also very useful for small non-food projects)

Above: Dirty and oil-stained skull and a bone; Below: Skull in a pot for boiling.

Below: The skull is coming to a full boil. It’s NOT falling apart…it’s actually working. Yay.

After boiling and getting rid of larger debris, I left the skull in the water for an hour to cool. Then I drained the water, rinsed it a couple times, and filled the pot with hydrogen peroxide to cover the skull. After about a day, it removed the smaller debris and some of the coloration. Honestly, the result wasn’t as dramatic as I expected, but it did a good job. Overall, no damages except a tooth fell out, but I think it was going to fall out anyway.

Below: The nice, clean skull after boiling and a day of hydrogen peroxide treatment.

Congrats, Graduates!

It’s almost at the end of that final push. Some people probably haven’t slept in days. But…graduation is near…or is it??

Congratulations to medical illustrators who are graduating this semester. Must be a relief to finally graduate!

To those who have found a job already–Congratulations to you too. Just don’t forget to graduate.

First year students–welcome to the second year. It’s time to really make the most out of your skills.

Good luck to those who are finishing up research projects. Suck it up and give it that final push. You can do it!

Interview with Jim Hoerricks

While working on a project, my internet search took me to a blog called “Forensic Photoshop.” Being a long time fan of forensics and a user of Photoshop, I was curious to find out more about the author behind this blog. It turned out to be Jim Hoerricks, a forensic image/video analyst who not only writes a blog, but is also the author of a book by the same name. I contacted Mr. Hoerricks two weeks ago and he immediately agreed to an e-mail interview.

me: “First, could you tell me a little about you and what you do with the LAPD? Is this something you’ve always wanted to do?”

Jim Hoerricks: I’ve always been into art, the process of creation, crafting, designing, and so forth. I started out as an artist/designer. My first gallery showing and sale was in the 8th grade (some valuable lessons in contracting were learned there). I started out with art as a business in my shared flat in college, doing flyers for parties and so forth. I got a graphics job on campus that later lead to the editor’s job with the college’s daily newsletter.

Over time, I built up a client base. My primary function, my position with my clients, is to find out what they need and deliver it on-time and at a value that they and I can both afford. I’ve done everything from menu boards, to ad sheets, to Excel applications. Later on, with the advent of things like Microsoft Publisher, clients brought their art departments in house to save money. Some came back after a while. I still maintain a small list of clients whose accounts are more like personal relationships than business.

In 2001, I was offered the chance to join the LAPD as a civilian specialist and start the Forensic Image/Video Analysis lab. It took a few years of chasing down funding and equipment, writing SOPs, and whatnot, but I eventually got it all going.

To answer the “is this something that you’ve always wanted to do” question, I’d have to say no … inasmuch as the job, the technology didn’t exist to exploit images the way that we analysts do until I was already in college. Even then, I wasn’t aware of what was happening in the industry. I simply love to create, love the challenge of crafting something new. There’s a lot of technical cross-over between my background and this new industry … so it just fit. It just made sense. I could edit on an Avid, on Premiere, and Vegas … and these are the primary tools for a forensic analyst. Then there’s Photoshop. Everyone uses Photoshop, which is my real strong point. Then I can bring in all of the other software and hardware tools … and the Workflow was born.

me: “I’m sure when many people hear about your job, the first thing they want to know is “how close does it resemble forensic TV dramas such as CSI and NCIS.” Is your job as exciting as what we see on TV?”

Jim Hoerricks: There is no “CSI” button, obviously. The question is valid, and there is a “CSI Effect,” but I think of it in terms of another challenge. Instead of sitting by bemoaning the fact that these shows exist and people watch them, I look to them for research into what juries expect. If a jury expects to see a face resolved from a reflection in a nearby window, and I can resolve the image … great. If not, I can tell the story, my testimony, as if I was within that “CSI” episode. “In CSI, the latent prints are lifted from the whole car in a matter of minutes. Fade to black, off to commercial, and when you return, there’s a match … the reality is much different.” Then I explain why.

Is the job as exciting as TV? No. An unfortunate “side effect” of the work is vicarious trauma, the trauma that your brain endures as you watch (helplessly) as bad things happen to real people, over and over again. In one murder case, I watched the footage over 500 times during the course of my work. It has an adverse effect on your mental health. The trauma can lead to things like depression and PTSD if not recongnized and mitigated. Thankfully, I’ve got a former client who’s an expert in this area. He’s helped tremendously.

I don’t think people realize that there is a psychological difference between watching Arnold blow up a town on TV (then seeing him as Governor later in the day) and stepping around an actual dead body or watching someone actually get hurt on video. Remember the Faces of Death videos from the 80’s? Remember the public’s reaction? There is a difference.

(comment: I couldn’t agree more that there is definitely a greater distinction between the real work and TV drama than many people might realize. It makes me cringe whenever an illustrator delivers facial reconstruction in minutes, and *computers* magically reconstructs accidents without much input on the part of the visual specialist. I think sometimes it is difficult for people to grasp what we do because many don’t realize that sometimes the simplest images require months of preparation and research to produce. However, Mr. Hoerricks brings up a good point that TV is something that a lot of people relate to. So next time we see something impossible on TV, instead of thinking “this is impossible,” maybe we should think instead “how can we make this possible?”)

me: “What are some of the challenges you have come across in your work?”

Jim Hoerricks: The biggest challenge is staying on top of technology. As an example, every time Adobe comes out with an upgrade to the Creative Suite, it costs me a couple of thousand dollars. I’ve then got to find a way to pay for it.

People just assume that these things happen somewhere, by someone. But budgets, priorities, and finding time for things like a life and family all add up.

(comment: Indeed, equipment is expensive and it’s all a big balancing act. I was a bioengineering major before, and I didn’t realize how much more it costs to become an illustrator compared to becoming a scientist. Textbook costs are nothing compared to the Adobe Create Suite, and there appears to be such a limited source of funding for travel. I am jealous of my friends in engineering who get all their conference fees and travel expenses covered for by the school. I would love to attend every single conference that’s relevant to what I do in order to stay on top of the trend, but we simply cannot.)

me: “Can you name one thing you do that sounds fascinating but is in fact very mindless and repetitive?”

Jim Hoerricks: There’s very little that’s repetitive. Every case is unique. Different recorders, different lighting, different circumstances, different law being broken, and so forth. Having a set of procedures and a Workflow helps keep everything in order and keep me on track.

(comment: I used to draw insect anatomy every day for a year and people would ask the same thing:) No, it did not get repetitive.)

me: “You have a website, a blog, and a book called Forensic Photoshop. Are some Photoshop techniques unique to the field of forensics?”

Jim Hoerricks: They really aren’t. Photoshop wasn’t written for forensics. I’ve just taken what I know from the design/photography world and applied it to forensics. Sometimes, there are those who disagree with a particular technique, like dodging/burning for example. But it can be done in such a way that preserves the original, happens on its own layer, and does not change the content or context of the image. It can also be documented and explained to the jury … so I’m comfortable with it.

A friend at Adobe told me once that there are over 7 million “consumer” photographers and about a million professional photographers in the world. That’s a big customer base for Photoshop. There are less than 100k potential customers in “forensics” at this time. They really like us and support us as much as they can, but the art/photography world rules the day as far as Photoshop is concerned.

me: “Did you ever encounter any ethical or legal issues with enhancing and manipulating images? One can argue that the more you manipulate an image, the more it deviates from the original. Does a manipulated image lose its validity in court?”

Jim Hoerricks: Words have specific meaning. It depends on what you mean by “manipulate.” Here’s how I would explain it. An underexposed image … nothing to see … all darkness. Is it useless? Not hardly. With Photoshop’s tools, I can potentially correct the exposure, adding light to the image. Did I manipulate it? Yes, of course. Did I add anything? Certainly, I added light. Did I change the content or context? No. I only added light to assist the judge and jury in ascertaining the contents of the image. Open the door to a dark room and turn on the lights. What did you do? Did the process of turning on the lights arrange the room as you see it? No. It merely increased your ability to resolve the details in the room. So you see, it all depends on how you define things.

I want to thank Jim Hoerricks again for this interview and his quick response. To view his blog and learn more about him, visit http://forensicphotoshop.blogspot.com/ and http://www.forensicphotoshopbook.com/about_me/about_me.htm.