10/7/09

Museum Update

Well, I am still beyond tickled to see work I've done in OsiriX being used by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Short explanation of how the images were made to follow.

So, because I feel like sharing, here are two of the flyers in which my images are used. (the flyers are the work of the design team at the Museum, I just provided content).

The Press Release flyer.


A promotional flyer, first page.


First of all, I must admit that I have upgraded the computer that these images were made on to 64 bit version of OsiriX. It is an 8 core Mac Pro, with at least 4 gigs of memory, perhaps more. I drool over it, but it's not mine. In any case, it handles large case files well- and this was a very large file. Multiple scan inputs, with the largest being over 4,000 slices. Needless to say, the 32-bit OsiriX, while open-source and awesome, could not handle this dataset.

So, by upgrading to the 64-bit version, we were able to utilize the full power of the machine. And let me tell you, for 3D visualization purposes, I highly recommend the upgrade. It's amazing and well worth the money. And doesn't it just give you a warm fuzzy feeling to know you are supporting a favorite program? Maybe that's just me... If the warm fuzzies don't do it for you, knowing that a 3000+ data set can be opened without hiccups and in less than 2 minutes may peak your interest. I am thoroughly enjoying the upgrade, when I get to use it.

Now that the program handles the dataset (barely), it takes hours of fine tuning to get any sort of recognizable image. I much prefer working with live humans, as the cadavers (especially mummies!) just don't have the same clarity. None of the pre-set CLUTs that come with OsiriX truly worked with this mummy data, but I had a very interesting time coming up with my own 16-bit CLUTs to use and save. The results were quite interesting, and for the most part, the museum didn't ask for any major changes. I did tweak the overall color in Photoshop (from a red to a golden-orange), but no cover-ups or major Photoshop changes.

I do love OsiriX and any opportunity to use it is great fun, not just work.

That is pretty much it. Now, I have to find someone I can vivisect to see the brachioplexus in action. Any volunteers?

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