Last time, we shared the vision behind our exhibition in Taiwan. This time, we’re taking you behind the scenes into the planning, problem-solving, and setup that brought it all to life.
Planning
Figma for Collaborative Planning
Our newest favorite design tool, Figma, quickly became the heart of our collaborative planning. Early versions of our illustration designs were covered with comments, and during meetings, we’d jump on Figma together with our named cursors surfing across the artboards to discuss design.
Cinema 4D for space mock-up
To bring our ideas into physical space, we turned to our animation software, Cinema 4D, to mock up the exhibition hallway. This helped us visualize how visitors would move through the space and experiment with different layouts.
Notion for Project Management
With so many illustrations and overlapping to-do lists, working asynchronously meant staying closely aligned to avoid duplicate work and keep momentum going. Notion served as our project hub, bringing together task tracking, meeting notes, and trip planning in one place.
Challenges
From Screen to Gallery
Transforming digital surgical animations into large-scale printed illustrations required significant adaptation. Several of the illustrations called for graphic design and reconfiguring 3D camera settings to accommodate the A2 illustration ratio, as opposed to the 16:9 video format these images had originally been designed for.
More importantly, all images required an ‘upscaling’ in resolution, since all of the videos were designed to be viewed on a screen, rather than printed as illustrations. In most cases, this required our team to re-render images from their original 1280px x 720px resolution, to a print-appropriate 7016px x 4961px resolution. Rendered images were also converted from RGB to CMYK colorspace, and carefully reviewed for any color adjustments for a seamless transition to print format.
Re-rendering images from 1280 × 720 to a print-ready 7016 × 4961.
Translating Complex Workflows
Condensing such a complex workflow into a concise, exhibition-friendly format was no easy task. To guide our design, we drew on previous blog posts and presentations that documented the major stages of 3D animation production. We needed to balance technical accuracy with accessibility, ensuring each step was clear without overwhelming viewers.
The “Process” wall became our most ambitious effort, and also the most well-received. Visitors were impressed by the depth of our workflow and the thought behind each design decision. We truly enjoyed the time we put into it. This gave us a unique opportunity to reflect on the way we make our videos and how we describe and explain our production process.
Figma board for the “Process” wall planning.
Day-of Setup
Before jet lag could even kick in, we were climbing on ladders and swapping out light fixtures—it was time to bring everything we’d planned into the physical space!
The exhibit hallway has tracks along the ceiling just above the wall edges, perfect for hanging the illustrations. The challenge was making sure every piece is perfectly straight, level, and evenly spaced. While this was new to us, our meticulous alignment skills in the digital world translated seamlessly into the physical one! We quickly found our rhythm, working in sync as a team, measuring, adjusting, and stepping back to review. It was slow and demanding, but deeply satisfying.
The "Process" wall proved to be the most challenging. Built as a 3-by-11 grid, it required careful coordination at every step. One person handled wires, another placed artwork, while others fine-tuned spacing. What started as a complex puzzle gradually came together into a seamless whole.
Completed Exhibit
A few hours and several coffees later, we had ourselves a complete surgical art gallery!
It was truly magical to see our vision take shape in the physical space, after more than a year of careful planning and creation in the digital realm. Our many years of work, both in terms of rendered final artwork, but also cooperative team dynamic, came through in flying colours.
This was an incredibly rewarding experience, and one we look forward to repeating in the future.
We hope you enjoyed this behind-the-scenes look at the production and setup of our NTUH illustration gallery exhibition!
Thinking about bringing a medical art exhibition to your institution? Feel free to contact us and we’d love to discuss.
–TVASurg Team