Medical Animation News

A quick internet search will tell you that the term "medical animation" refers to a clip that uses computer-generated imagery to recreate in virtual space a surgery, medical procedure, physiological function or pharmaceutical mechanism of action.

However, not so long ago, a medical animation was something very different from the 3D medical visualization you're likely to think of today. For many years prior to the invention of computer graphics - or for that matter, computers - this term referred to inert, 2D medical illustrations.

Then, around the time that televisions were becoming commercially available, "medical animation" came to have a new meaning - specifically, hand-drawn cartoons that conveyed the essentials of surgical topics.

For instance, the phrase appears in a 1939 edition of the book Illustration: Its Technique and Application to the Sciences, written by Carl Dame Clarke and Edward Melchior Hoshall. In the text, the authors explain that medical animations can render human anatomy in remarkable detail.

As an example, they include a cel from an early medical animation depicting the routine removal of tonsils. Unlike the still drawings that for centuries had encompassed the entire field of medical illustration, this animated short film was something revolutionary: a moving picture that could convey change and emphasize (through shading) different organs and tools at different times.

The animated clip itself depicted the entire process of tonsil removal, complete with narration and labeling, techniques which are still employed today in cutting-edge 3D medical visualizations.

At the time, though, they were quite new. In their book, Clarke and Hoshall referred to one of the earliest scientific articles ever written about medical animations. Titled "The Use of Animated Drawings in Medical Motion Pictures" and appearing in the Journal of Biological Photography, the report had been published just seven years previously, in 1932.

As the years went by, hand-illustrated medical animations became more popular.

In the 1947 text Medical Art, released by the Association of Medical Illustrators, the animator is reminded that funding is practically the only impediment to making a good medical visualization.

"For the average medical animator desired by the average department without a grant, the matter of expense rears its ugly head to such an extent that the story must be shelved unless practical ways and means are provided," the authors explained.

They added that medical animators should stick to illustration methods that make their product a marketable film.

Many clearly did, because today's 3D medical animations are hot commodities!

Amerra provides custom medical animations, medical illustrations and interactive medical software. For additional information please contact us at 1.888.9AMERRA or e-mail info@amerra.com.