Looking for crisp, royalty free medical illustrations with one-click purchasing.

March 6, 2009 11:32 AM

Looking for crisp, royalty free medical illustrations with one-click purchasing.

I'm looking to get some medical illustrations for publishing and want to be sure the rights are cleared for web and print publication as well as internal use. Specifically, I'm looking for crisp anatomical illustrations, hopefully in EPS or SVG format. The graphics may be used internally as well as externally. I've checked istockphoto but they don't have what I need. Since I'm using these for a business I'd like to be absolutely clear on the rights for the photo, and am wary of using openclipart.org or similar.

posted by benzenedream to media & arts (6 answers total)

Maybe there are some here
posted by hortense at 11:36 AM on March 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

I used to work with this guy at one point, and I saw recently that he started to do medical illustrations. It may not be one-click, but since (I think) he did them himself, it will be easy to get the format and rights that you want.

http://www.swiftillustration.com/Swift_Illustration_1/Home_page.html
posted by nyc_consultant at 12:58 PM on March 6, 2009

well, there's the netter collection. they're REALLY FUCKING EXPENSIVE though.

what do you want them for? i presume not medical textbooks?

there are thousands of medical illustrators out there. visit their websites and see if you could buy something from them.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 1:05 PM on March 6, 2009

Try commons.wikimedia.org, the image repository of Wikipedia. All files there are freely licensed and they can be pretty damn good, such as this SVG diagram of the human ear.

Wikipedia itself has images too, but they may require attribution - no royalties, though. Both Commons and Wikipedia will give you much of what you want.
posted by lambchop1 at 5:22 PM on March 6, 2009

If you're not familiar with Commons, here is the category containing anatomical drawings of the heart and the digestive system.

Categories are the best way to search for this kind of thing, so here is the category for all anatomical plates and drawings on Commons.

Some of the captions are not in English, but if you need translation you can ask there for help. All these images are licensed under a Creative Commons or GNU license, or in the public domain, including for commercial use. Look on the individual image's page to see if attribution or other acknowledgement is required.
posted by lambchop1 at 5:36 PM on March 6, 2009

Thanks to everyone for all the tips. Another resource that people might like is the NCI Visuals Online archive from the National Cancer Institutes. Medical drawings are clearly noted for copyright status or public domain status - only downside is they don't have SVGs, but have some very nice 300dpi art that can be used.

I can't use rights-restricted content right now, since I can't be sure where the diagrams I create will end up. The netter collection is very nice (to look at) though. In the future when I have more time I'll comission custom art under a work for hire contract, which should prevent future copyright issues.
posted by benzenedream at 12:56 AM on March 10, 2009