Voxel-Man

Virtual Reality Medical Training Simulators

The Visible Human Project

Logo of the NLM Visible Human ProjectCross-sectional image of the Visible Human with vertebral column, kidneys, intestines, and a small section of the liver (detail)Ellipsoids in RGB color space used for classification of various tissue types of the Visible HumanDifferent states of the virtual dissection of the Visible Human

In 1994, the U.S. National Library of Medicine published an image dataset of a male human body as the first result of its Visible Human Project (VHP).

The body of a donor was fixated in a mixture of water and gelatin and frozen. Thin layers were removed at a distance of 1 mm, and a photo was taken of each resulting section. This way, 1878 cross-sectional images of the body were obtained that show the three-dimensional structure of the human anatomy from head to toe in high resolution and natural colors. The color images (also known as cryosections) were supplemented by corresponding CT and MRI images.

We used the cross-sectional images of the Visible Human to create 3D models of various regions of the body in unprecedented detail and realism:

Arm of the Visible HumanArm and Hand (2004)

Muscles of the torso of the Visible HumanTorso and Internal Organs (2000)

Heart of the Visible HumanHeart (1999)

Reanimating the Visible HumanReanimating the Visible Human (video, 1997)

Virtual dissection of the Visible Humans's headHead (1995)

These models form the basis for various interactive 3D atlases of anatomy and radiology.

References

  1. Thomas Schiemann, Ulf Tiede, Karl Heinz Höhne: Segmentation of the Visible Human for high-quality volume-based visualization. Medical Image Analysis 1, 4 (1997), 263-271.
  2. Ulf Tiede, Thomas Schiemann, Karl Heinz Höhne: Visualizing the Visible Human. IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications 16, 1 (1996), 7-9.

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