Work in Computer Graphics and Pedagogy
Developmental Biology
Role of mechanical forces in amniotic sac development in avian and reptilian models
The Amniotic sac is a fluid-filled sac that envelops the developing embryo. In oviparous or egg-laying animals, the amniotic sac and other layers surround and protect the embryo and provide early nutrition. In the chicken embryo, it starts to form after 34 hours after fertilisation. It starts a circular line about the head of the embryo made of cells of varying stiffness. This ring of cells of different physical properties leads to the concentration of tension forces at this border. The result of these tensile forces is tissue buckling along the ring, which is the start of amnion formation at the head of the foetus. The ventral end has a similar event, where a ring of cells organises beyond the tail edge that buckles to form the amniotic flap over the tail. This paper presents a physical model for developing the amniotic sac in the chicken embryo. Our model also successfully explains the formation of the amniotic sac in the Nile Crocodile, going beyond the avian model and confirming the role of the robust biomechanical phenomenon preserved through evolution.
Paper in Physical Review E
Computer Graphics and Pedagogy
Text-to-Movie Authoring of Anatomy Lessons
Anatomy is one of the most essential yet challenging subjects in medical education. It is introduced early in the curriculum, and students must retain this knowledge throughout their careers. A significant challenge of anatomy pedagogy is presenting complex three-dimensional body parts in lessons. Multimedia methods such as animated videos and 3D anatomical models are popular, but making these models is cost, time and labour-intensive. Graphic designers and animators make them under the direction of anatomy experts, but this limits the creative control of the teachers. In my thesis research, we present a Text-to-Movie authoring system for anatomy professors that enables them to make and edit the content for their lessons without needing a design specialist.
We provide the solution in three parts. We first present a formal language to describe a video’s visual elements. This language is human and machine-readable, allowing us to annotate the video in text form. This Prose Storyboard Language (PSL) is for broader use in film direction and analysis. In the second part of the thesis, we introduce the anatomical specialisation of this language called the Anatomy Storyboard Language (ASL). This domain-specific language forms the basis of input for our authoring system. The users have to write scripts in ASL to list all the parts they want to show in the video and outline the directions for the camera movements and animation of the elements seen. Our system reads the script, and the final animation is played in a Unity player. Finally, we present the results of our evaluation of the software done with four anatomy professors. The teachers could make their own narrated, animated video lessons on the knee and their limited experience in animation or video editing did not hold them back. The choice of text as an input was particularly favourable as the teachers did not have to learn a new and often intimidating user interface for design software, making our system intuitive and easy to learn.
Thesis manuscript
The Art of Gamifying Anatomy Lessons
What if anatomy teachers have an easy-to-use game authoring tool to create interactive lessons to teach human anatomy?
Vaishnavi Ameya Murukutla 