Here is the lamp shade I designed for the 3D Print Lamp Contest hosted by i.materialize for Blender artists:

Hope this appeals to the science illustrators and anyone else who’s likes proteins, jellyfish, or anything that lights up Please correct me if you catch any mistakes, it was getting late…

To vote for your favorite lamp design (and please do, the top 3 winners get their design fabricated and delivered), follow these steps:

1. View all the designs here.

2. Register with the Blender Artists Forum at http://blenderartists.org/forum/register.php if you haven’t already. Sign in.

3. Vote for your favorite design here. Only one design per voter.

See video in this link: http://allday.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/09/08/2057944.aspx

Any idea where it might be? Perhaps the fact that I’m posting it is giving away the answer.

I will be blogging less frequently for the next few months. I’m trying to graduate by December so project research needs to come first, and time is running out…

That said, I’ve been teaching myself Blender over the past couple of weeks and just came across this 3D printing contest for Blender artists. The contest is sponsored by i.materialise, a 3D printing business. The rules for entering are simple:
1) Register with blenderartist.org forum
2) Design your own lampshade using Blender, following the guidelines here http://i.materialise.com/blender (click “Download Plugins” on the left hand column, then download the pdf followed by the appropriate files)
3) Post 3 screenshots via Reply here http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?p=1462901#post1462901

The rules are explained in detail in the above link too. The top three winning designs will be printed and delivered to the winners for free.

The deadline for the submission is Wednesday Sept. 19. Not a lot of time, I know. I wish I had found this sooner too but I’m going to give it a shot anyway. How many other chances do you have to have your own lamp design 3D printed for free?

The Science Illustration Certificate Program, previously at the University of California at Santa Cruz, has moved to California State University at Monterey Bay. The program’s website, http://scienceillustration.org/, remains the same. The program is now at:

California State University, Monterey Bay
Office of Extended Education
100 Campus Center
Corporation Building (201), 2nd Floor
Seaside, CA 93955-8001
(831) 582-4500

Read more about the move here: http://news.csumb.edu/site/x24301.xml

I’m proud to announce an exhibit currently taking place at the International Museum of Surgical Science in Chicago. This exhibit, titled “Redefining the Medical Artist,” features the works of students, alumni, and faculty of University of Illinois at Chicago’s Biomedical Visualization program, where I am currently enrolled.

Although the Biomedical Visualization program at UIC, or BVIS, is the second oldest medical illustration program in the U. S., the program continues to push into the future. Traditional medical illustration is still in our background, but students who go through this program are encouraged to embrace technology and changes. Modern medical illustration is much more than an artist drawing on paper, thus the term “visualization” instead of “illustration” is used to truly capture the meaning of what we do.

Currently too many people, including many medical professionals, are still unaware of the field of medical visualization. “Why do we need illustrations when we can take photographs” is still the number one question I am asked when explaining to someone what I do. In reality we do use photographs and imaging technologies as part of our working process to visualize things that cannot easily be expressed.

“Redefining the Medical Artist” hopes to address these issues by bringing awareness of this specialized field to the public and showing that technology does not replace the need for medical art. Rather, it allows medical art to thrive.

*Special Thanks to Meena M. for putting together this exhibit and for everyone who contributed.

Press Releases:
https://www.imss.org/anatgallery.htm

http://chicago.timeout.com/articles/art-design/77412/redefining-the-medical-artist

Exhibit and Museum Info:

“Redefining the Medical Artist”
August 7 – October 16, 2009.

International Museum of Surgical Science
1524 N. Lake Shore Dr.
Chicago, IL 60610 USA
(312)642-6502

Museum Hours:
Tuesday – Sunday
10AM-4PM

Admission:
Free Tuesdays
Adults $10
Students/Seniors $6

*3ds Max lung model © Denoyer-Geppert, images used with permission.

Following “Visualizing Lung Anatomy,” I can now begin to model the lung. First, I took screen shots of the lung in VolView in three orthographic views–top, left, and front. Then I set up three orthographic planes and added each image as materials to the planes. I prefer this method over using a background image because this allows you to see the images in perspective views as you rotate objects. You also don’t have to worry about shifting your objects and locking zoom, which in my version of 3ds Max gets a little quirky.

Next, I put more planes in the scene, took a screen shot of every twentieth slice from the data set, and applied the screen shots to the planes as materials. Now that I have slices of the lung from front to back, I outlined each slice in the front viewport. Notice that the outlines are all located on the same plane. This will be fixed later. (If you are wondering why the “right” lung is on the left side, it’s because the “person” is facing us so their right is our left.)

Once the outlines are complete, I calculated the distance I must offset each line in order for it to fit the profiles correctly. After the outlines are moved to their correct positions, you can clearly see the shape of a lung in the perspective view. The lines must be linked together in order for a surface to be created. I selected one outline and used the “Attach Multiple” option under the modify panel. For now, I keep the front and back halves separate so I can easily hide the back side when necessary. Then, using the “Connect” and “Refine” features under the modify panel, I connected vertices between the outlines.

Here is what the model looks like with connections between the outlines:

Using the “Surface” modifier, I created a surface using this mesh. At this point it’s not perfect. I must go back and adjust the mesh until the entire surface can be covered:

A model of the lung without holes in the model:

The lung is looking nearly perfect, but overall still appears rough. Adding “Relax” and “TurboSmooth” modifiers will help refine the mesh:

This is one way to make a model of the human lung. I chose this method because I wanted to capture the accuracy in shape and had tools to visualize CT scan data. I also chose not to model the lobes separately because they are not the primary concern for this project and can be added later using materials.

Have really enjoyed reading about your internship, i graduated last year with an anatomical science degree and want to do somthing creative with it but have not found any jobs that combine the two…. this internship seems perfect tho! how did you find it?

louise
———————————-

Dear Louise,

These two links below list the current available internships at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. Names and contact informations of the project sponsors are listed below project descriptions. Once you find an interesting project, you should contact the sponsor and have your resume (and portfolio if relevant) ready in case they ask for it. If your sponsor decides that you are a good fit for the project, he/she will contact you with further info.
http://www.nmnh.si.edu/rtp/other_opps/internintro.html
http://www.nmnh.si.edu/rtp/other_opps/internship_projects.html

As far as how I came across this opportunity, I contacted people I knew in the illustration field for advice and then looked online until I found those pages. A few questions to ask yourself:

-What skills do I have?
-Do other fields value these skills?

In my experience, thinking about your specific skills rather than what you want to be forces you to think outside the box and will open up more opportunities. For example, I am trained in medical illustration, but I have both traditional and digital drawing skills, I’m good with details, and can draw faces. Instead of looking strictly for medical illustration jobs, maybe I can draw portraits on weekends for extra income, etc. etc.

-What types of companies do I want to work for?
-Where would I like to live?

These two questions generally help me refine the search results. General searches often times will not point you to a specific position, especially if the title of the position does not match your search keywords. If there is a list of companies you are interested in, you can go directly to the company’s website and see if they have anything available at the moment. Adding a location after a general search will sometimes tell you whether there is a market for what you would like to do in that area.

Hope that helps,
Janet

One of the projects I’m currently working on at home involves building a 3D model of the right lung. To make sure the model will be as accurate as possible in terms of shape, I would need to know the lung anatomy before I begin building the model.

The first thing I did was going to a library to look at drawings and photographs of lungs. I did a few quick sketches and wrote down some notes on how I will approach this in a 3D program:

Now comes the fun part…

Next, I went to CVS and bought some Crayola modeling clay and began to build a small lung model while looking at online images of the lung. I tried to find as many variations in as many angles as possible, but most resources only showed the standard views. The e-anatomy website very helpful for this initial step, since it provides cross sectional images, labels of structures, and several different ways of presenting the structures. (The website is free, but registration is required to gain full access to the labels and features. High res images and full screen mode are available with a fee, but for our purpose this isn’t necessary.)

The purpose of making a clay model is to get a concrete physical sense of the three-dimensional shape. I find this step very important because it forces you to piece together two-dimensional visuals into a three-dimensional object. It is through this process that I begin to realize the complexity of the shape of a lung.

Below: Clay lung, heart, and a piece of unused clay.

To begin the digital visualization process, I looked further to find visualization tools that would allow me to use actual human data, look at the structures from various angles, and isolate unnecessary structures. Osirix, an open source DICOM viewer, is perfect for the job. It even has data sets available for download. The only problem is…Osirix is Macs only, and I only have access to PCs.

After poking around for a while, I found a similar product called VolView that works on a PC. VolView comes with a $1000 yearly or a $2500 unlimited licencing fee, but it has a 30 day free trial for download. I was able to import a data set from the Osirix website into VolView. My impression of VolView after two days is that it is very easy to navigate, comes with instructions (Help –> Help Topics), gives good results, and has powerful features. One thing I haven’t figured out is whether there is a cut feather that allows the user to trim away unnecessary parts. There seems to be a segmentation tool under the “Analysis” tab, but the instructions for this feature is limited and it is a feature that does not allow “undo.” That is scary. The first time I tried it, it messed up a model I had been playing with for two hours, but it warns you first so you feel like it’s your own fault for not listening. Luckily I was able to reproduce the same result ten minutes later. Here is a screen shot of my lung visualization:

…and a detailed shot of the lung. You can see the bronchi entering the right lung, but notice there are still some artifacts on the side.

*See “Modeling Lung Anatomy” for the next step in this process.

One of the neat things about being an intern at the Smithsonian is the intern activities. Being 30 minutes away from the main building, we usually can’t attend the lunchtime discussions. The Museum Support Center (MSC) where I work, however, houses part of the museum’s collections so we got some nice tours of the fish and anthropology collection last week.

The first question I asked on each tour was “Can I take pictures?” The answer is yes, but only if it doesn’t go on a website. Images that go on a website have a lot of legal issues that needs to be dealt with, and no one wants to take the time to fill out pages of forms for anyone who wants to post these images. It’s understandable, so I’ll try my best to describe what was seen.

Walking into the fish hall is like walking into a giant freezer. Temperature is kept low to slow the ethanol’s rate of evaporation. Fishes are stored in ethanol-filled jars, with identification labels both on the fish and inside the jars. Special paper and ink are used for these labels so they last, in ethanol, for hundreds of years. This collection reminds me of large library, but with over four million specimens of fish instead of books. Oversized fishes are stored on a separate section, and near the entrance is a shelf that houses the “Oh My” collection. The “Oh My” collection, understandably, contains strange fishes that elicit the “Oh my!” response from people. For example, a two headed shark, a fish that looks like a rock, and a fish that is just too strange to describe. Next, we go to a separate tank room to see the fish that’s even too big for the oversized collection.

The tank room is reminiscent of the bathtub aisle at Costco. On these shelves lie individual metal tanks with sealed lids. The lids can be slid away when they become unlocked, revealing one large fish just under the size of a tank bathing in ethanol. We walked into a preparation room and opened up the tank housing the coelacanth, which was thought to be extinct 65 million years ago until its discovery in 1938.

The museum deals with such a large collection, even after the tours it’s still difficult to comprehend just how big the collection is. The only thing I can think of is that stockroom scene from The Matrix where Neo says “Guns. Lots of guns.” and racks of guns start flying at you. That’s actually a pretty close description to the weapons section of the anthropology collection. The majority of the collection is stored in closed space, but several, including weapons and bones of large mammals, are out in the open due to space constraints. The anthropology collection appears even more spectacular than the fish collection, probably because it was housed in a larger open area rather than separated into a number of smaller rooms. Even so, we went up a total of two flights of stairs and walked through several fire doors before coming back out into the open. Within the collection area, filters run constantly to circulate air flow and filter out dust particulates, and the rows of white cabinets open up to reveal sliding drawers.

Each collection is organized according to the nature of the particular field. This particular collection is organized by geographical region and time. Artifacts included clothing, dolls, baskets, weapons, masks, and much more. Pieces with historical significance are often stored along with related artifacts and copies of historical documents. Even modern pieces such as Korean plastic toys from the 70’s have made their way into the collection. Objects deemed highly sacred by certain cultures are specially cared to make sure only those who are allowed to view or handle them can do so. Like the fish collection, the anthropology collection also accomodates oversized objects. Large objects ranging from figure sized statues to ships sit in custom-built metal frames with fireproof blankets over them. Some frames have wheels to facilitate transportation needs.

This concludes the collection tours. There is no way to open every cabinet in this lifetime. Maybe next week there will be other adventures.

Third day at the internship, I’m still overwhelmed by everything this place has to offer. Even prior to the start date, the friendliness and efficiency of the staff members really stood out. Weeks ahead of time, I had already received detailed instructions about what to do on the first day. I followed directions diligently like a little kid on a scavenger hunt–”get off the Metro station…walk towards this intersection…go through this particular door, turn right, go through another door and receive a visitor’s pass…” Being nervous about missing the shuttle to the Museum Support Center in Suitland where I’m stationed, I arrived much ahead of time. Staff member Mr. Potter, who just happened to arrive at the same time, kindly introduced me to the cafeteria where employees can enjoy a morning cup of coffee before the museum opens. Mr. Potter then suggested that I kill time by visiting the Sant Ocean Hall. Here’s a glimpse of the exhibit at 8AM, without any visitors:

By the third day, I already met nearly 15 other interns. The majority are aspiring young scientists, but there’s a surprising number of illustrators like myself as well. An intern in my section is working her way to apply for a medical illustration program, and I just met another intern who actually goes to the same science illustration program I did four years ago. I’m excited to be surrounded by such a variety of people and all the resources this place has to offer.