Thank you, mondo, for fascinariong question,
First I want to highlight two limitations of the answer I can
provide:
1) My professional experience is in the field computer models
and scientific visualization, not in poster publishing. Therefore
there may be a bias and also a weakness in answering the first
part.
You may choose to post the poster aspect as a separate question
to get a different view and more erudite answer regarding that
part.
2) This is the wrong forum for making a direct connection with the
right person. Even if the 'ideal match' would be reading your
description of the task, she or he are not allowed, by the rules
of this site, to disclose their indentity and to enter into a
negotiation.
There are several sites for finding a free-lance partner, or
consultant
to perform such work under a contract such as
Elance: The Better Way to Buy and Manage Services
http://www.elance.com/
To obtain a list of such sites, enter the following into the google
search engine:
related:www.elance.com/
Publishers usually have their preferred artists, editors, and other
needed resources to produce and distribute a poster.
A decision must be made to either to self-publish with free-lance
help
or to gain the interest of one of the established publishers,
listed here:
http://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Publishers/Health/Medical_and_Professional/
http://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Publishers/Health/Mental_Health/Professional/
Due to the demanding character and richness of the information to
be presented,a
specialised publisher, such as the DK - producer of the famous
eye-witness series -
may be needed to produce a poster, probably with a companion a
booklet with CDROM
to present your data. The problem here is the cost vs. volume.
http://usstore.dk.com/shop/about/dk/
With that, the limitations and hard-copy publishing resources
superficially
covered I will now address the second part, the dynamic format
and electronic
distribution option.
The number of receptors, connections, and the complexity of the
map requires an
interactive format. The historical precendent here is GIS, a
method of displaying
maps on the computer, which allows the user to add and remove
layers, such as roads,
railroads, rivers, .. and to zoom in on selected features. I have
searched for
such an application already developed for anatomy and physiology
of brain:
search terms: GIS, brain,
GIS, anatomy,
There are sites involved with both GIS and brain, but in
parallel, yet links
may be interesting to explore
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/local/suminst/bbi00/projects/kasper.html,
http://www.irisa.fr/vista/Themes/Demos/Medical/PageImagCerebrale-eng.html
http://www.irisa.fr/vista/Themes/Demos/Medical/GIS/projetGIS-eng.html
but do not actually describe application of GIS to brain
topography.
earch terms: atlas, brain,
There are many site on brain anatomy which however not use GIS:
http://www.med.harvard.edu/AANLIB/cases/caseM/case.html
http://rprcsgi.rprc.washington.edu/~atlas/lateral.html
http://www.msu.edu/user/brains/sheepatlas/topview.html
http://www9.biostr.washington.edu/da.html
http://www.hscer.washington.edu/hscer/cddev/cddev.html
(The last link above may be your ideal partner; see their poster
services page:
http://www.hscer.washington.edu/hscer/posters/posters.html )
http://medlib.med.utah.edu/kw/brain_atlas/
http://www.bic.mni.mcgill.ca/brainweb/
The point is that GIS is not just tool to do geography, but a
tool to present
spatial relationships in an interactive way on a computer
display, and it
apparently has not been applied to your field as yet. So, here
are few general links
on GIS. It is a well established sub-field of IT and there are
both
Open Source and commercial software systems already developed.
I will list only two of many: open and commercial, respectively:
http://www.opengis.org/ (open)
http://www.esri.com/software/arcview/ (commercial)
http://www.geoplan.ufl.edu/giseducation/gisworks.html
(conceptual sketch)
GIS deals with geometrical objects, points, lines, surfaces and
volumes. The
application to cartography is just one, the historically first,
use. It is
different from related areas such as CAD, as discussed e.g. here:
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=GIS&hl=en&lr=lang_en&selm=37cf067b.14393765%40news.dnai.com&rnum=2
Even the subset of the field, namely "GIS for 3D Visualization"
is large
and easy to get lost in. I suggest you ask for a partner in this
newsgroup:
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=lang_en&group=comp.infosystems.gis
and find someone able to develop your non-traditional
application.
For ditribution, I recommend a web-site with possible downloads
of software and data.
To discuss the trade-off between e-publication via website,
CD-rom and paper
publication would require some information on long term and short
term goals.
It is more difricult to make money on internet publications, but
it has been done
sucessfuly with software. Your application, which has a narrow
audience and software
complexity, seems to be a good candidate.
If I have not fully answered your question, feel free to ask for
clarification.
hedgie |
