Medical animation has a large variety of applications, from education to demonstration to data capture and manipulation. Animation can have both hospital, institutional, and pharmaceutical applications. Animators in the medical field can apply their skills to many tasks, including:
- Demonstration of how pharmaceutical drugs work in the bloodstream and body;
- Interactive models of the human body on both macroscopic and microscopic, interior and exterior scales;
- Interpretation of patient data into 3D visual images;
- Creation of instructional materials for medical students;
- Demonstration of surgical techniques in virtual representation;
- Breakdowns of how medical equipment/proposed medical equipment will work.
There are, of course, many other applications, and some medical imaging facilities are even perfecting techniques in which sensors can be used to produce accurate, fully-interactive 3D representations of an individual patient's body, replacing current video imaging technology.
Medical animation is a very detail-oriented career that requires a great deal of education beyond mere animation techniques. Unlike most animation, you aren't just dealing with the outside appearance and the "outer shell" of the model, where what's on the inside doesn't really matter as long as the exterior looks good and moves correctly. Medical animation tends to be more interactive and deals with layers upon layers of precise anatomical modeling, that often must be accurate down to the cellular level.
It's like being a surgeon, without getting your hands dirty--and it's equally fascinating (but not for the weak of stomach, though at least if the sight of blood makes you faint, you're safe). Medical animation is probably one of the most exacting, difficult paths that you can follow in the animation field--but if it suits your tastes, then it can also be one of the most rewarding.
