Output details
34 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
University of Dundee
Integrity, structure and surface. (Digital Visualisations). Exhibited at ACM SIGGRAPH Art Show, Digital Eyes, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery November 6, 2008 - January 18, 2009.
These two digitally created images explore John McGhee’s practice-led research interests in beauty, structure, and harmony within the human vascular system, in particular the flow of blood through the human kidney. These images were created as part of a unique collaboration with the Department of Clinical Radiology at Ninewells Hospital, Dundee, Scotland. The aim of these particular images was to expose and communicate the fragility of the human kidney. The intention was to suggest an internal jewel-like quality to anatomy, highlighting an inner space otherwise hidden from the human eye.
The starting point for the creation of these images was MRI data. In the first instance, DICOM-image-slice data were exported from a Siemens Avanto MRI scanner located in Ninewells Hospital. These cross-sectional slices were acquired during an angiogram procedure performed on a patient being scanned for a vascular condition known as renal artery stenosis. From the DICOM files, the MRI data was imported into a medical 3D reconstruction package (Materialise Mimics) and, through a process of thresholding and segmentation, an ISO surface was extracted. After this, the 3D geometry was imported into Autodesk Maya, and the anatomy was creatively interpreted with the addition of shaders, lighting and rendering.
The development of the described computer graphics pipeline (over a 2 year period) combined with arts-led interpretation was unique in the field. The production of this 3D computer visualisation technique saw the emergence of a new hybrid visualisation approach that bridges scientific medical data and artistic imaginative vision to create a new aesthetic. This originality of this approach has been recognised internationally. These images were chosen for display as part of the prestigious Siggraph DigitalEyes exhibition of 2008-2009.