David is an accomplished and award-winning medical illustrator and animator whose pioneering career in digital animation spans 34 years. After holding the position of Senior Medical Illustrator at the Yale School of Medicine, David founded Advanced Imaging, Inc. (1984), the world’s first digital medical animation company and in 2000 co-founded XVIVO Scientific Animation.
David was Medical Director of the groundbreaking, award-winning film series ‘The Inner Life of the Cell’ for Harvard’s Molecular and Cellular Biology Department.
David founded his current education-oriented company, e.mersion studios, LLC, in 2012 for client work and Emersionist, LLC for partnership projects.
“It was not long before traditional medical illustrators outside the field of computer science began to adapt to the new technology. In 1984, the former lead medical illustrator for Yale University, David Bolinsky, made the transition to 3D and started Advanced Imaging, the first 3D medical animation company. As the first traditional medical illustrator to fully embrace 3D CGI, his accomplishment is especially noteworthy because the transition from 2D to 3D visualization is not easy, due to 3D software’s steep learning curve, differences in design tools and terminology, and a very different workflow for bringing an idea to final visualization. Computer Graphics World has recognized Bolinsky as a pioneer who played a key role in revolutionizing medical illustration through his use of 3D CGI. David Bolinsky created a muscle physiology animation for a videodisc on human physiology using Wavefront software running on a Silicon Graphics workstation. Computer graphics imagery such as this revolutionized medical illustration.” (Eastman, C. “From the Teapot to the Human: The Impact of 3D Computer Graphics on Medical Imaging and Medical Illustration”; Animation Journal. 2012; pp 30 – 50.)
David “Bolinsky was the first medical illustrator to make the (expensive) leap into 3-D computer animation production in 1984 when he founded Advanced Imaging.” (Mazierski, D. “History of Illustration. Chapter 27: Medical Illustration after Grey’s Anatomy: 1859 to the Present. From Pencils to Pixels”. In Press.)
A two time TED Speaker, David is passionate about bringing the power of visual learning to science education, through advances in interactive technologies and innovations in publishing.
Major clients included global corporations such as Merck, Genentech, Novartis, and Pfizer; museums such as the Smithsonian and Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry; DARPA; the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and universities such as Yale, Johns Hopkins and Harvard.
Collaborating with content specialists, we travel with our clients from script to screen. We are engaged with our partners to study how students best learn information in highly complex scientific topics. Our work is tuned to the expected audience; whether for kids attending a museum or medical students learning the complex pathways to coagulation, we treat the aesthetic and scientific content with equal reverence, and always respect the viewers’ intelligence.
