Katrina Hu – Looking Outwards – 03

Voxel-Printing of the Human Brain

The Mediated Matter Group at MIT uses a multimaterial voxel-printing method. This enables the physical visualization of data sets. These data sets are visualized on a screen, and then converted into physical 3-D objects. One of the objects that stood out to me was the physicalization of the human brain. The viewer is able to see various brain structures, including bundles of axons that connect different parts of the brain.

I admire this work because it allows people to actually visualize structures that may otherwise be hard to see. It is very effective, as physical manifestations of data sets can improve spatial perception skills. It also makes the presentation of new information more intuitive for students. It allows much more interaction than 2-D information displays.

To generate this work, the group converts data sets into dithered material deposition descriptions. The data sets then can be visualized on screen and can later be converted into physical objects.