About Me

The CGFigures Project

I’ve studied science and engineering for over a decade. My undergraduate degree was split between biochemistry and materials engineering. My PhD was completed in chemistry and focused on developing new solar cell materials and devices while working out process optimization and pushing for automation in academia. I love interdisciplinary work because of the new perspectives it brings to existing problems and because pure and applied science are both essential parts of the process.

For as long as I’ve been studying I’ve also been tinkering in 3D design using all kinds of software for both artistic and engineering purposes. In 2018 I started getting more involved in the incredible Blender community. To build a Blender scientific community I started creating tutorials for specialized science and engineering subjects. To date I believe I have assembled one of the largest collections of free specialized tutorials for 3D scientific visualization. Coupled with an ever-growing library of scientific assets and community showcases highlighting the work of scientists, engineers, artists, and developers I hope to bring better figures to a global audience. Consistent with the open source mission of Blender I will keep CGFigures accessible for everyone.

Dr. Joseph (Joe) G. Manion

Frequently Asked Questions

  • It’s just Joe. Dr. Manion is very formal and I definitely don’t introduce myself that way.

    • I am not currently accepting commission work through CGFigures. I am happy to provide recommendations for scientific visualization services. Any cover art or published work you see from me is likely done as part of my day job at the University of Ottawa

    • I certainly hope so! I have a running backlog of tutorial ideas and getting through all of them takes a long time. If you have something you need addressed try checking out my existing tutorials or join the blender.science community on discord

    • I am not currently giving seminar talks or live tutorials. I aim to record any lectures I do and they are posted on YouTube

    • The majority of my 3D work is done with Blender. Some old projects were done in 3DSMax and I have a longstanding goal to learn Houdini. I tend to do light compositing in old versions of photoshop

    • For manufacturing and design projects I use Blender or Solidworks (which I am still learning). In the past I have used Fusion 360

    • In my day job I am the Laboratory Manager for the Lessard Research Group at the University of Ottawa. You can find the group’s excellent work at benoitlessard.ca. A great deal of the website was designed by me using Squarespace.

    • Plain and simple I believe that people’s work must not be used without their consent. I do not and will not make use of any tools that rely on work collected without the consent of the original creators or legal copyright holders. I am not opposed to the use of computer aided tools developed through machine learning or other means. I value the research and research efforts of the scientists and artists involved in that work but firmly believe it can be and must be done ethically

    • If you would like to use my work in a training set and are unsure about the license terms from the source where you found them you can contact me directly. For any published work found on my portfolio page under the “Journal Covers” or “Published Figures” sections I do NOT give permission as this must be obtained from the relevant journals or authors.

Contact CGFigures

If you have feedback or would like to get in touch about something science or 3D related you can reach me on Twitter, YouTube, or by email.

Email: cgfigures@gmail.com