CD-ROM Review

July 1996 / Bits / CD-ROM Review

Virtual Dissection
Rich Friedman

Digital Humans, Multimedia Medical Systems , Charlottesville, VA; (800) 741-6713; http://www.mmms.com ; $19.95
Several years ago, medical researchers at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, working in conjunction with the U.S. National Library of Medicine, started the Visible Human Project. The goals of the project were to turn a male and a female cadaver into high-resolution digital images and models, then make part of this research available to the public.
The original data from the project amounted to more than 50 gigabytes of d igital images. The unprocessed data includes 6000 color photographs of cross-sectional anatomy as well as computer tomography and magnetic resonance images. The Digital Humans CD-ROM consists of a small sample of the data but gives a very educational and realistic glimpse into 3-D anatomy.
Thousands of cross-sectional color photographs were digitally layered to create a 3-D model of the skin and underlying tissue. This color 3-D model was then fused with a skeleton model reconstructed from the computer tomography images. You can interactively rotate and view the digital humans from the front or side or horizontally. When viewing with (enclosed) 3-D glasses, you see a stereoscopic view of human anatomy that comes close to what medical students see in a dissection room. One section of the program lets you rotate the head in three dimensions and see how the brain sits relative to the skull.
Additional applications are expected to come from the Visible Human Project. Researchers say they are working on virtual surgery on simulated combat wounds, as well as adding models of children and of people who died of different diseases.

Beats the Aroma of Formaldehyde
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