VRAIN

This project involved designing the UI / UX for the visualization and editing of MRI brain scans. While at RareFaction I collaborated directly with neuroscientists at the USC Laboratory of Neuro Imaging. The challenge was to improve a laborious system where manual intervention is required to analyze and “clean-up” a generated 3D model of the brain. Previously, this intervention required a human to look at one cross section of the brain at a time through a Paint / Photoshop like interface, removing erroneous pixels from a series of 2D images.

Through iterative user interface and user experience R&D, we moved this data and process into Virtual Reality, under a hypothesis that this 3D problem is best tackled within a 3D workspace. Now, researchers may view multiple cross sections of the brain at once which may make the process faster, easier, more fun, and induce less mental fatigue over time. The project’s early results have been promising; our research continues to undergo user experience testing at USC.

I was specifically responsible for:

Designed how to visualize 2D cross sections as 3d layers that could be scaled, edited, and distinguished from relevant and irrelevant data.
Designed how to quickly and intuitively select 3d pixels for removal or undo edits.
Designed the UX and UI for toggling between different parts of the brain and ways to visualize the data with color coding.