Drop a labelled diagram into Lexie and it finds every label, hides it, and turns the picture into image occlusion flashcards. All that is left for you is the part that counts, which is typing each label from memory. It works in the browser and in the app, and you do not need Anki for any of it.
The slow part of image occlusion is drawing the boxes
Image occlusion is one of the best ways to learn a diagram. You cover the labels, try to recall each part, and then check yourself. Medical students have relied on it for years, mostly inside Anki.
There is nothing wrong with the method. What wears people down is making the cards. Every label needs its own box, drawn by hand, and a single anatomy figure can easily carry 15 or 20 of them. By the time you have done that for eight figures you have drawn more than a hundred boxes, and the evening you set aside for studying has gone into data entry.
That is the part that image occlusion in Lexie takes over. It reads the picture, works out where each label sits, and hides them for you.
From a picture to hidden labels in eight seconds. Nobody drew a box.
How to make image occlusion flashcards automatically
Getting from a picture to a finished set takes about a minute. You can follow along with your own diagram on the image occlusion page, where a live demo is waiting at the top.
Get the picture
Any image of a diagram you need to memorise will do, as long as the diagram has text labels. Your own labelled sketch works too.
Drop it into Lexie
Lexie recognises that it is looking at a labelled diagram, reads each label along with its position, and hides them all.
Check the labels
The pencil opens the label list, where you can correct a label that was read wrong or remove something that is not a label, like a title or a page number.
Type each label from memory
Hide one label at a time or all of them at once. Lexie checks what you type and keeps track of the labels you missed, so you can come back to those.
For Anki users who are tired of manual occlusion
If image occlusion in Anki works for you, there is no reason to leave it. This page is for the people who like the method but gave up somewhere around the fortieth box.
Lexie is a separate tool, not an add-on, so there is nothing to install and no deck to set up. You drop in the picture and the test starts. The cards stay in Lexie and cannot be exported to Anki, which is why many students keep Anki for their text cards and bring only their diagrams here. The diagrams are where the setup time goes.
The review feels different too. Anki shows you the answer and asks you to grade yourself, while Lexie asks you to type the label before it shows anything. That is a stricter test, and a more honest one, because if you can type it, you know it.
Why image occlusion beats plain flashcards for diagrams
A text card can ask what the mitral valve does, but it cannot ask where it is. In anatomy, cell biology, histology and geography the exam puts a picture in front of you, and knowing where a structure sits is half of the answer.
That is what an image occlusion card tests. Because the hidden label sits on the diagram itself, every time you recall the name you also tie it to the place. It helps to start with Hide one, so that the other labels give you some context, and to move to Hide all once most of them come easily, because that is what the exam will look like.
What you get
No boxes to draw
Lexie finds and hides every text label on the picture for you.
Typed recall
You type the label before you see it, which tests recall and not just recognition.
Hide one or hide all
Keep the other labels visible for context, or hide them all as the exam does.
Labels you can fix
Correct a label or remove a region before you start, in a few seconds.
Photos and image files
A photo from your camera or an image file will work, and so will a sketch you drew and labelled by hand.
Browser and app
Start on lexielearn.com and carry on in the iOS or Android app.
What it does not do
A few limits are worth knowing before you start. One picture makes one set, so a whole PDF will not turn into occlusion cards in one go, and you will need one image for each figure. Lexie hides text labels, which means that a structure with no label on the picture cannot be hidden. And the cards cannot be exported to Anki.
A whole PDF does work for the other study modes. Drop it in, and Lexie makes flashcards and a quiz from the text.
They are flashcards made from a picture. The labels of a diagram are hidden, and each card asks you to recall what sits under one of them. It is the standard way to learn labelled figures in anatomy, biology and geography.
Lexie reads the text in the picture along with the position of each word, groups the words into labels, and hides them. Before you start you can correct a label or remove one.
No. Lexie is its own tool, and it runs in the browser and in the iOS and Android app with nothing to install.
No, the cards stay in Lexie. If you want everything in one Anki schedule, Anki is still the place to make them.
Not for image occlusion. One picture makes one set, so you will need one image for each figure. A whole PDF does work for normal flashcards and quizzes in Lexie.
Yes, as long as the labels are legible. A clean image file gives the best result, but a photo works too, and so does your own labelled sketch.
Three study sets are free, on the web or in the app, and an image occlusion set counts as one of them.
