Glaucoma Research Illustrations
I had the opportunity to collaborate with researchers at the University Eye Clinic Maastricht to visualize glaucoma research through detailed medical and scientific illustrations. The project focused on two key areas. The first involved creating anatomical illustrations of the retina and optic nerve, demonstrating how increased intraocular pressure can damage the optic nerve and contribute to the development of glaucoma. The second involved visualizing the experimental setup used to simulate glaucoma in a controlled artificial environment.
The medical illustrations and scientific visualizations were primarily created in Adobe Illustrator, while the 3D animations of the experimental apparatus and research environment were produced using Autodesk Maya.
Someone suffering from glaucoma starts losing eyesight gradually from an increase in pressure in the eye that eventually damages the optic nerve.
The idea is that the increased pressure in the eye puts the Retinal Ganglion Cells (RGCs) under a lot of stress and eventually kills them, which leads to hollowing out or 'cupping' of the optic nerve head and a decrease of signals from the retina: loss of eyesight.
Researchers know that the pressure in the eye plays a role in the damaging of the optic nerve, but how exactly this damage occurs is less clear. So to test what actually happens, the researchers at the University Eye Clinic built a setup to test what different kinds of stresses actually do to a Retinal Ganglion Cell: a RGC is placed on a special culture unit on top of a membrane that can be stretched in different directions.
Little channels that run through the device that the culture unit is on, make it possible to create a vacuum under the membrane which stretches it together with the placed RGCs. In real-time this stretch and release happens very rapidly.
To better visualize it, I made a 3D model (and animation) of the culture unit. Starting with a single part that shows the same RGC stretching mechanics as in the above images.
All kinds of shapes and sizes of culture units are put on the device, which makes it possible to simulate many different types of pressure on the RGCs. Here are a few snapshots from the animation of the full culture unit 3D model:
