For this project I decided to depict the many layers of the retina from a head on view as if you were looking into someones eyes through to the rear layer of the eyeball.
The first layer I worked on was the choriocapillaris and vascular tissues that supply the essential cells that process visual stimuli with nutrients via blood supply as well as the pigment epithelium layers where the photoreceptors are embedded. This was the most solid layer and so using it as the anchor and furthest back layer seemed optimal. Based on this reference imagery I made this layer semi hexagonal arrangement of red noodle-like structures.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/aos.13210
The photoreceptors that detect incoming light (rod and cone cells) are what typically come to mind when people think about the visual processing taking place in the eye. Their names correspond to their shape but to depict them I had to further research their relative size and abundance in the area of the eye I intended to show.
Cones come in three varieties: short-wavelength-sensitive (blue detecting), medium-wavelength-sensitive (green detecting), and long-wavelength-sensitive (red detecting), referred to as S,M, & L cones. There is a greater concentration of M&L cones than S cones which I correspondingly color coded.
https://www.provisu.ch/en/dossiers-en/color-vision.html
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcell.2022.878350/full
The fovea is a special area of the eye within 1º of where light focuses and it has only color receptors (cones). As you navigate away from the fovea you begin to see rods, which resolve light and dark, in greater abundance than cones. Within approx 18º of the fovea rods and cones are similar sizes 3µm and 2.5µm respectively, but beyond this they become larger to capture more diffuse light 5.5µm and 10µm.
https://www.cis.rit.edu/people/faculty/montag/vandplite/pages/chap_9/ch9p1.html
To show this 2 dimensionally I chose that the lover righthand side of the painting would depict the fovea and show how the dispersion and size of cones would change as you became further away. I wanted to make them large enough to correspond the virtual models I would place in front of the canvas in AR.
https://www.webexhibits.org/causesofcolor/1G.html
I was able to find some prebuilt 3D models with cc attributions to build the photoreceptor cell layer here:
https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/3d-model-hd-retina-cross-section-1475001
This model includes the additional cells you would find in subsequent layers including horizontal cells, Müller cells, Bipolar cells, Amacrine cells, and Retinal ganglions.
To use this model it will need to be converted into .fbx or .obj format and loaded into the adobe aero scene with 2D anchor attached to the canvas to orient it in the correct direction. It can then be explored by moving through the scene on tablet or phone to explore the cell layers and their functions like swimming along a school of fish.