Data of the Soul

Role:

Sole Artist

Brain Imaging - CAD Design - Additive Manufacturing

Data of the Soul is a sculptural art project I conceived and developed from volumetric scans of my own brain, captured by an MRI machine. This sculpture takes the anatomy of my brain and deconstructs it into multiple interlocking puzzle piece layers, with each layer rendered at a different degree of pixelization to question and bridge the connection between the organic data processing of the mind, and the digital computation of the computer.

This project began in my undergraduate studies of psychology and was one of my earliest forays into the world of 3D Printing. During my studies in psychology an opportunity arose to participate in an MRI research study and I jumped at the opportunity. I requested the raw data for my brain scan, which took the form of a DICOM file format, essentially a series of stacked JPG images, that as a whole form a larger 3D volumetric. About a decade later during my graduate studies, and opportunity arose to experiment with 3D printing and this data set immediately jumped to mind.

I meticulously hand manipulated large stacks of hundreds of individual images from this DICOM image set in Adobe Photoshop. These image manipulations included down-rezzing the images to achieve a 3D pixelization effect, cutting in interlocking nubs and sockets for the pieces to fit together, and generally cleaning up any messy data that resulted as artifacts from the MRI scan. These image stacks were then brought into a specialized piece of software called 3D Slicer that could interpret this volumetric data into 3D models that could then be exported as a triangulated mesh. These triangulated meshes were brought into Autodesk Maya to clean them up for 3D printing and assure their geometry was watertight and manifold. The model was then printed on a gypsum powder printer for the final finished sculpture seen here.