Christmas Cards

This is a painted (electronic paint, anyway) of my Levitating Christmas Tree. Available as cards individually and in packs. These cards can be personalised with your own message. Cards are available for all artwork so you could equally choose something rather less traditional for your cards......

For all Christmas art go to Christmas.kightleys.co

Designs for Christmas

Christmas Designs

There are many new designs that should make attractive Christmas cards or wall decorations. I have also revivified an old design of mine from 1986, the Egregious Christmas Tree. Egregious is used in the rare old sense of being apart from the flock (in a good way). A little Christmas tree detaches itself from the forest and floats above it into the night sky. Unlike the drab trees below, it is festooned with lights and decorations. A shooting star arcs across the sky and we catch the moment as the star aligns with the top of the tree.

For all fine art prints, please visit kightleys.co.

Fine Art Site Now Fully Populated

I have uploaded pretty much everything that I think would look good on a wall! Simply click an image above to see the different types of prints.

FINE ART PRINTS: new web site launched

I have just created a new site where you can buy science based fine art prints. I'm only putting up a few select images that I think will work well as wall decorations. Generally, these are bold designs that would (I hope) look good in the home, lab, or doctor's office.

Influenza Virus Poster

Flu Virus Poster showing viral structure

I have just created a poster showing the structure and external appearance of the influenza virus. The cutaway image is labelled and there is a short explanatory text. The poster is designed to appeal to schools, universities, laboratories, doctors offices, GP's surgeries, chemists, pharmacies, and vaccination services. It is the latest in a series of science and math posters.

I have also created a series of products featuring my influenza virus.

The reason that influenza changes so rapidly (and why we need different vaccines each flu season) is that the flu genome is segmented. It comes in eight pieces. If a cell happens to harbour two or more different flu types, then new virus particles can assemble by including segments from different parent viruses. This is called reassortment.

New Science Posters Available

Make Custom Gifts at CafePress

Pythagoras' Theorem animation

Steampunk Pythagorean Engine

I have just finished a couple of animations showing Pythagoras' Theorem with the squares of a right-angled triangle animating as the triangle changes shape. One is a simple and conventional demonstration of the geometry, the other is a steampunk Pythagorean Mathematical Engine. You can also see a high resolution still of this Pythagorean Machine.

Cartesian coordinates animation uploaded

Cartesian Coordinates Animation. This brand new animation shows how Cartesian coordinates can describe a point along a line, in a plane, or in a space. This final still from the video shows a square sheet of paper with a grid pattern of fine blue lines, a central red point (origin), X, Y, and Z axes , and two points. The two points (shown as coloured spheres) have their corresponding positions marked along the axes. Shadows of the purple point (floating at front) are cast on each of the three perpendicular planes. This helps to explain how the three coordinates (x, y, z) can specify a point anywhere in three dimensional space. All sorts of useful mathematical operations can be done using these coordinates. This animation is designed to help those who are new to this subject to easily visualize and understand it.

There are several high resolution Cartesian coordinates stills from this model available.

Steampunk Eye: accommodation simulation ideal for optometrists

Animation of s steampunk style artificial eye whose lens changes shape during accommodation

I have just created and uploaded a simulation of a collimated light beam passing through a model of a human eye. Although the eye and lamp are rendered in faux brass to give a nice steampunk look to the animation, the optical qualities closely match those of a real emmetropic human eye. The lens can be seen (subtly) changing shape and bringing the light beam to a closer focus. This is how a real eye actually focuses on near and distant objects. This short video clip would be ideal for display in an opticians shopfront. Clean and mechanical without all the messy biological bits....

As well as this animation, there are several high resolution steampunk ocular stills available:

eye focused at infinity
eye focused at close object
eye inverting image #1
eye inverting image #2

I also have the major refractive errors animated:

hypermetropia (long sight) animation
myopia (short sight) animation

and cataract, one of the major causes or preventable (or reversible) blindness.

To see everything to do with lenses:

Lens & Light Animations
Lens & Light Ray Stock Images

Steampunk Science Animations

http://videos.kightleys.com/Science/Steampunk/

There are three new animations that look like old mechanical curios:

Sine Wave Machine
Tangent Graph Machine
Lens with Varying Curvature

They can all be found in the new Steampunk Gallery. Much more ornamental than my usual, rather austere, style.

Sine wave & cosine wave animation + tangent graph animation to buy

A couple of enduringly popular animations have just been polished up and are now available for sale:

sine wave + cosine wave
tangent graph

these are ideal for teaching maths. Sine waves are ubiquitous and underlie many different phenomena. These animations help the viewer to undertand the relationship between circles, angles and these resulting waves.

New Microscopic Image Gallery

new microscopic image gallery

I have been adding microscopic views of various insects, food stuffs, and other objects to my new microscopic image gallery. Images include ants, house fly (compound eye), chilli flakes, rice, sugar, and coffee.  Prices are low and the licencing simple (royalty free). I suppose you could say microstock ;-).

Buckminsterfullerene molecules: different treatments

Different treatments of the same molecular model: Buckminsterfullerene in various garbs

I have just created and uploaded several new versions of my Buckminsterfullerene molecule (C60) or Buckyball. As an exercise, I tried to make them as different from one another as possible. Some look like architectural structures made of steel girders, some like plastic construction toys, and others like mutant frog spawn. This is partly to show that representations of molecules are far removed from reality. The fact that they can look so different, whilst still having the correct arrangement (a truncated icosahedron) and bond lengths, is quite sobering. Other versions (not shown here) use the van der Waals radius of carbon to build very pneumatic looking molecules. I think that the one one at top right (the frog spawny one) gives a nice sense of slippery ball ball bearings held tightly together by a bluish glue.

Magnitudes Photography New Site Launched

Magnitudes Photography

Gordon & Donna Peachey, who have created beautiful teaching posters for many years, have just started a new venture selling high grade prints of natural subjects at Magnitudes Photography.

Their passion is to explore the designs and textures of nature with microscopes, macro lenses and telescopes. In their collages, they weave patterns of nature together from the cellular level all the way to the night sky in designs both beautiful and inspirational. In their flower pictures, they have moved in very close to highlight each flower's special architecture. These collages and single images are presented as non-fading canvas giclée prints.

The roots of their images are found in their educational posters. Gordon & Donna Peachey started Biocam Communications Inc. 25 years ago to bring more life in to the teaching of biology. Their educational posters are used world-wide in biology classrooms and laboratories.

I have worked with Gordon & Donna for over ten years helping to create images for their posters. They have always had the highest standards in accuracy and quality (and have been a pleasure to work with). This is a great new venture and I wish them every success. I think that these serene and beautiful images would grace any home or office.

New Influenza Virus Image: 3D stereo anaglyph available

Influenza Virus 3D Anaglyph

My new flu model has just been used to generate a 3D anaglyph of the influenza virus (viewable with red-green spectacles). This image shows the virion cutaway to reveal the deeper structures such as the RNPs and the matrix shell. At 5000 pixels across (25 megapixels), it is large enough to be used for museum exhibits or trade show displays. Anaglyphs are always a big drawcard for shows. You can see all my anaglyphs here.

All influenza images are in this gallery.

New Flu Image: 3D cutaway model of influenza virus

Influenza Virus Structure Cutaway

A set of new graphics clearly showing the structure of the flu virus have just been uploaded. Superficially you can see the spikes of Haemagglutinin (red) and Neuraminidase (squarish and yellow). These spikes pass through the greenish viral envelope to dock with the underlying matrix (M) proteins shown in purple. Inside the matrix shell you can glimpse the dark yellow ribonucleoproteins that house the viral genome. Flu viruses have eight of these RNPs. This segmented genome can get jumbled up during viral assembly. This allows different strains to easily form from existing types if more than one type of flu virus has infected the same cell at the same time. These illustrations are ideal for educators and public health campaigns. They are high resolution (5000 pixels across) and so are suitable for large poster displays. There are several versions of these cutaway structural graphics:

Flu Structure #1,  Flu Structure #2,  Flu Structure #3, Flu Structure #4 (on black),
See all flu images.

New Influenza Virus Model Created

Influenza virus: new model

I have just added a new graphic of an influenza virion to my collection. This is based on a new 3D model that I have been working on for quite a while. Highly detailed and to scale, it shows the glycoprotein spikes (haemagglutinin, red, and neuraminidase, yellow) radiating from the viral envelope. Barely visible (but there nonetheless) are several copies of the transmembrane (M2 protein) proton channels. Beneath the envelope lies the matrix protein cage (grey units that can be glimpsed clearly through the viral envelope). The model that I created allows for spherical, capsule shaped (as in this case for this particular image) and elongate forms of the virus.

See also a version of this influenza virus particle on a black background.

Australian Native Plant photo collections goes Royalty Free

Eucalyptus mannifera

I'm experimenting with RF for my collection of Australian Native Plant Photos. Pricing is very affordable and usage is simple. For the time being I'm keeping the Rights Managed model for all my science images. Any feedback would be welcome. These images would be ideal for Australian small businesses. Use on letterheads, business cards etc. All for one low fee. Also suitable for garden centres, conservation groups etc. The option of personal use licences is still there, so you can beautify your computer background etc.

Facebook page launched

Please see my brand new Facebook page.

Any suggestions would be welcome.......

Circle Sphere Calculator gets a makeover

My popular calculator that computes radius, diameter, circumference, circle area, spherical volume, and sphere surface area has just been re-vamped. The calculator itself has larger text and numbers making it easier to read. All existing images have been removed and replaced with the new clean sphere graphic mentioned in my previous post. Similar improvements have been wrought in the sister cone and cylinder calculators.

Are graphics on a white background preferred by picture editors?

Sphere with equations for area and volume

Images with a white background are easier to integrate with text. To that end, I have re-rendered some of my images to give them a clean white look. They jump out of the page and are ideal for textbook use (and web use, too). Traditionally, I have used a black background. Mainly because I started doing electronic graphics for TV and images worked better with a dark background. Textured backgrounds are nice but can be restricting for some uses. For most images, I can alter the background for a modest fee.

Please let me know what you think: white, black, flat colour, or texture!

Here are some of the newest examples:

Rabies virus on white background
Cylinder showing equations on white

Cone showing equations on white

House Prices & Rental Charges Calculator

Can we know what houses are really worth? It's a vexed question with no clear answer. Generally people say that the property is worth whatever the market will bear. Is there a more rigorous method? I have a little calculator that can calculate the theoretical rental that you must charge to pay for the cost of a house. It is only really for entertainment but it gives you a perspective on the disparity between rental charges and real housing costs. When I try some figures it shows that rentals are usually far too low to cover the real costs. Are rents too low or house prices too high? In a rising property market capital gains can make up for the shortfall. But what happens if prices fall? Have fun!