DAYDALAUS

Chilean @MIA | Engineer | Msc On Digital Design Student | This blog is about my final project

[daydalaus]

Delivering tattoos for the medical future

I’m placing myself in a future where getting tattoos for medical reasons is a common idea, it could be an easy way of detecting some imbalance and apply corrective methods, like in case of diabetes.

If this will be a common situation I figure it must be done in a serialized way and with precision. A machine could do the simple tattoos, since there has been experiences with robot arms modified for tattooing it could be possible to grow this system into a simpler procedure (like in the show The Expanse, the patients insert their arm into a sleeve that do diagnoses for them, in this case the sleeve could give a small tattoo.

However it is delivered, either trough a machine or by a person, the tattoo must be a streamlined process with certain objectives.

- Easy and fast design of the tattoo - Assistance to personalization of the tattoo for the patient (colors, skin colors, size, recommended shapes) - Fast delivery of the final design to the artist or the machine - Simple enough to be an ambulatory, less than an hour procedure - Standardize way of reading the different conditions included in the design

[daydalaus]

Common types of tattoos

Watching documentary “Tattoo nation” I realized I have to try to categorize the most common types of tattoos as to get an idea what the parametric tattoos should look like, I require to know what are the more required imagines to be sure nature based tattoos will be well received

So far I haven't find any survey about the type of tattoo people like more. I would have to interview tattoo artists to get a better understanding about the opinion on pattern tattoos.

So far I've read or watched documentaries which mention.

Portraits, Black and grey: According to the documentary “Tattoo Nation” portrait tattoos are a recurring theme, specially done in black and gray

Religious theme: According to “Tattoo nation” religious iconography are a common theme, coming from the origins of black and grey tattoos from LA, from the Mexican-american populations.

American eagle: According to the Drawing and design tattoo book, it is a common theme in the US

Asian themed tattoos : Koi fishes, Dragons, loto flowers and tigers

[daydalaus]

Using parametric patterns to create personalized tattoos

Considering these medical tattoos could be applied to a large segment of the population it could be time consuming to create personalized tattoos for every person the way it is created now, by consulting with the client and creating each tattoo individually, however if we could create a tool to generate unique patters based on previous inputs by the user we could have unique tattoos for each person that are easily created and can comply with the restrictions of the tattoo process, the contrast of colors and the medical requirements.

The picture is a close up of a butterfly wing, which distinctive patterns. I wonder if I could research for different nature patterns and utilize the mathematical formulas to create unique images based on different parameters

[daydalaus]

Natural Patterns

[daydalaus]

Proposal for medical conditions sensing tattoos

If the user is going to be tattooed with ink capable of sensing medical conditions the tattoo has to be able to create clear contrast for the user to see when the medical condition is triggered, but it also has to be be aesthetically pleasing for an item that is going to be permanent in his body.

In this case I played with the idea of an elongated tattoo of different patterns that creates contrast when the ink turns into brown green due to detection of the medical condition. Contrasting colors with the brown were selected to form the tattoo and complementary to each other when the tattoo ink is inactive (yellow)

[daydalaus]

How a medical device tattoo could be represented?

There are two basic ideas that have to be fulfilled, one, the tattoo must work for medical purposes, changing from a normal state to an alert state, the color change must be notorious and help preventing more serious states. The second requisite is that the tattoo must be pleasing for the user and fulfill the tattoo rules like size, color for skin, border size, preferred shape for te user.

I think color blind tests are a good idea, they are based on simple forms with different similar colors, but just part of the colors have a different contrast revealing a shape. These tattoos should make the contrasting colors more evident (0f course allowing even color blind users to see).

[daydalaus]

Tattoos as technology interactions

Also the MIT worked on three prototypes of interconnected tattoos, the first is one that act as a trackpad when touched, the second one is a tattoo that reacts to heat and the third one is a tattoo that carries information that can be read.

Could this be the future of interfaces, specially if the smartphone evolves into something embedded inside the eye, how are we going to interact with these devices?. we could utilice gestures, eye tracking and also tattoos to touch or bend, they can help us interact with devices that don’t exist as a physical square in our hands.

Will these tattoos conform to the tattoo aesthetic, will they create their own? will everyone have the same. I would assume that they will be temporal since technology advances and the way of input might change too

LINK

[daydalaus]

Tattoos as medical tools

There has been a couple of interesting technological developments in the tattoo scene, about using tattoos for something else other than the pure aesthetic value.

In the picture there is a tattoo made with a special biosensitive ink capable to change color in response to the Ph of the skin, the MIT has been studying the use of this in to be able to generate alerts when the user of the tattoo is suffering from some condition, like hight blood sugar, high alcohol content, out of bounds ph level etc.

In the future we might get one of these tattoos as a tool for an early warning to the user that something is wrong, the user could have it in a easily accesible spot and check it during the day. I see it also as a good tool for first responders, doctors or regular people to check the status of an unconscious patient.

How these technologies would change the relationship with tattoos? would people have them as a mere information tool or would they develop this technology to follow the patterns and forms of the current tattoo and make them also an aesthetic statement?

LINK