Facial Anatomy

Inspiration

The goal of this project is to make STEM education, particularly the study of human anatomy, more accessible and engaging through the use of augmented reality technology. Traditional methods of teaching anatomy, such as anatomy books and physical models, can often be overwhelming for novice students. By using augmented reality to overlay information directly onto the body, this project aims to simplify the presentation of anatomical information and make it more manageable for students to learn.

What it does

The project utilizes an open source blender anatomy library and a user interface slider to overlay and highlight specific muscles on a human face. This allows users to learn about important muscles in a bite-sized, interactive format. As the slider is moved, different anatomical structures are highlighted and corresponding labels are revealed one at a time. By pacing the information in this way, the user is able to better remember and understand the material.

How we built it

The project was built using a combination of 3D modeling techniques, custom scripting, and interface design. The open source blender anatomy library, z-anatomy, was used to create the 3D meshes of the musculature. A traditional UI slider was then used as a control to toggle the anatomical labels. Custom scripts were written to connect the opacity and muscle name slider values to the 50+ meshes and change their properties in real-time.

Challenges we ran into

During the development process, the team encountered several challenges. Some of the geometries had more than one render mesh, which caused shader reference issues. Additionally, some meshes were inverted because of negative scale, which caused issues with the highlight shader.

Initially, the team had planned to use a touch-based interaction, where the user would touch a particular anatomical structure to highlight it and reveal its name. However, many of the structures are layered and therefore occluded, making it difficult for the user to interact with them. As a result, the team had to scrap this approach and instead implemented a transparency slider.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

The team is proud of the following accomplishments:

The ability to show musculature in context (as an overlay on the user's face) The ability to change transparency of the structures The ability to individually highlight important anatomical structures

What we learned

During the development of this project, the team learned about:

Working with shader graph Creating UI elements Writing custom scripts Interfacing custom variables with shaders and UI elements What's next for Facial Anatomy

In the future, the team plans to:

Add blendshapes for the face and have the anatomical structures respond to facial movements Create similar experiences for hands and feet.

Overall, the project aims to make the study of human anatomy more engaging and interactive for students by utilizing augmented reality technology. The team is proud of the results and is looking forward to continuing to improve and expand the project in the future.

Built With

• blender
• javascript
• lensstudio