VOXEL-MAN

Surgery Simulators and Dental Simulators for Medical Training

The Visible Human Project

Logo of the NLM Visible Human ProjectCryosection of the Visible Human (detail) with muscles, ribs, vertebra, kidneys, intestines, and a small portion of the liverEllipsoids 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  Visible Human Project (VHP) of the U.S. National Library of Medicine published the first full-color three-dimensional image data set of a human body.

The body of a male donor was frozen in a block of water and gelatin. Thin layers were grinded off the block at a distance of 1 mm and the resulting surfaces were photographed. This way, 1878 transverse 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 called cryosections) are supplemented by previously acquired CT and MRI images. Following the same principles, an even higher resolution dataset was created from the body of a female donor.

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

Arm and HandArm and Hand (2004)

Torso and Internal OrgansTorso and Internal Organs (2000)

Cut open heart of the Visible Human FemaleHeart (1999)

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

HeadHead (1995)

These models also 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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