Big medical illustration project using Xara

Back in Feb my little company won an international tender to provide a comprehensive, new set of graphical illustration for one of the UKs leading Health Insurers. For reasons of confidentiality their name cannot yet be revealed but their new patient information factsheets and website will launched nationally later this month.

Here are 2 of the 170 illustrations developed for the project taking Xara X to its limits in many respects. Outputting these images at 300dpi A4 size was the greatest problem of all since numerous anomolies are produced whilst ouputting very complex files.

In the timescale completing this project would have been most unlikely without Xara X.

phantom medic

Back in Feb my little company won an international tender to provide a comprehensive, new set of graphical illustration for one of the UKs leading Health Insurers. For reasons of confidentiality their name cannot yet be revealed but their new patient information factsheets and website will launched nationally later this month.

Here are 2 of the 170 illustrations developed for the project taking Xara X to its limits in many respects. Outputting these images at 300dpi A4 size was the greatest problem of all since numerous anomolies are produced whilst ouputting very complex files.

In the timescale completing this project would have been most unlikely without Xara X.

phantom medic

Jack - Please let me be the first to welcome you to the Xara Forum. Your illustrations look great! I look forward to seeing more in due course.

The combination of Doctor/Illustrator is interesting. Although having to produce 170 drawings on schedule must be stressful I imagine you find the illustrative work to be very relaxing relative to Doctoring. (My wife has a relative who is a Doctor/Lobster Fisherman!).

Regards, Ross

<a href=http://www.designstop.com/>DesignStop.Com</a>

Ross, thank you for your warm welcome.

I have followed the Xara forum for a long while and will hopefully enjoy contributing to it. My experience using Xara preceeds its original release since I was involved in its creation. Many tips and questions to come...

Jack

phantom medic

Just let us know when the page is launched, I would for sure like to check it.

I'm not a member of the medical field, however, because of a rare connective tissue disorder, I spend a lot of time with doctors, NIH, etc...

These images are technically and visually excellent! Where they done entirely in Xara?

I wish my patella looked that good (e.g.,horrible Osgood-Schlatter Disease, etc..) transparent :-).

What "anomalies" are you referring to - output?

Keep up the good work.

Dave Zubrowski

Jack "phantom medic" Kreinder:

Your work looks great! Congratulations on this huge - and hugely demanding - job!


Best,

K

Nics illustrations... I assume the knee illustration is sourced from a 3D app rather than being drawn in Xara? I hope so at least, I'd not have a clue how to draw something like that in 2D vectors!

Hmmm. Kreindler, eh? Didn't you used to write for Acorn User? Or something?

Welcome Jack "phantom medic" Kreinder. I guess your reputation precedes you.

Gary

Gary Priester

Moderator Person

<a href="http://home.earthlink.net/~garypriester">
Be it ever so humble...</a>

http://www.thuntek.net/gwp/flag.jpg

My speudonym has completely failed, it seems. Never mind.

Indeed I did write for Acorn User years back, when Xara's predecessor 'ArtWorks' was my favourite graphics tool only on the Acorn platform - anyone still use their RiscOS machines? It may be of interest that the 'GDraw' graphics engine that makes XaraX run as quickly as it does evolved from ArtWorks GDraw engine.

Back to the illustrations...
Yes, some of the components for the graphics were originated in 3DS Max v4. Bitmaps were rendered and outputted as 32Bit TIFF files. Alpha channels automatically create a mask for the TIFF files when loading them into Xara. The nice thing is that Xara drop shadows affect only unmasked area of the image and are not applied to the rectanglar shape of the whole TIFF. Same applies to all imported images with masks.

Feathering, on the other hand, when applied acts on the outside edge of the whole TIFF image. This enabled the top and bottom fading effect on the bones above and below the knee joint. No need for over complicated trasparency effects.

The internal components and ligaments etc of the knee joint were super imposed using bitmap filled vectors, very gentle use of feathering and judicious use of graduated transparency effects.

The eye was completely generated in Xara.

Xara may not have the most comprehensive bitmap creation features but its speed in handling and layering multiple bitmaps of resolutions up to 1200dpi is extraordinary. Photoshop could do same but would need massive canvas and patience that would have taken me into the next geological epoch.

Here are some further illustrations which relied much more heavily on Xara alone. Life has no truely 2D surfaces. Everything has an edge, even if very thin - I found that careful application of the bevel tool helped an impression of solidity in the graphics.

More to come...

Regards,
Jack

phantom medic

Bile ducts and such never looked so good. Great Work. Your skill and work will be a boost for Xara and its forums. Neil

I read the major part of this thread thinking why does this Jack person ring bells. Then you admitted your past and all came flooding back.

You find me in this forum owning XaraX solely because I was originally an Artworks devotee. Migrated to PC some 2 years ago, somehow latched onto Xara which was too good to ignore at the discounted price. Acorn A7000 still in daily use mainly Impression Style and Artworks; damn good machines (and software).

Welcome aboard.

Alan

Thanx for deatiled insight into your creatvie techniques Jack, beautiful examples.

Roman

Simply wonderful artwork, Jack!

Nick Wilkinson.
IsoCalc.com