Science: Journey of a Molecular Nutrient

Jordan Miller used Blender to create an illustration for his biomedical research.

writes:

I've utilized Blender extensively to diagram, visualize, and showcase the structure of living tissue and what I see as the future of 3D printing and bioprinting. In Biology and Bioengineering we are trying to understand the relationship between structure and function in the human body to better treat disease and engineer new cell-based therapeutic strategies for tissue and organ replacement.

All content in this free, open-access article is licensed under Creative Commons. High resolution original artwork can be downloaded from PLOS Biology.

The billion cell construct: will three-dimensional printing get us there?
by Jordan Miller

Blender is an ideal program to work with. Inspired by this CC-0 blendswap by blender3dboy, I created this visualization from scratch to explain the components of living tissue. I made use of the wonderful MolecularScript to do the physics of blood cells bouncing down the vessel. Red blood cells are based on a simple torus, while white blood cells are a noise texture displacement. Endothelial cells lining the inner wall of the vessel are a negative displacement voroni texture and look remarkably like the real thing. Animation and dynamic materials texturing in Cycles were used for the rendering. We used a pair of Nvidia GTX 770s to do the rendering.

A HUGE thanks to the entire Blender team, what fun this has been.