[Web4lib] iPhone The Body Electric > Apps Visualize Human Anatomy

[McKiernan, Gerard [LIB]]

Colleagues/

 

Remarkable !

 

/Gerry 

 

Press Release > Oct. 8, 2009 - University of Utah researchers created
new iPhone programs - known as applications or "apps" - to help
scientists, students, doctors and patients study the human body,
evaluate medical problems and analyze other three-dimensional images.

 

The three iPhone apps are available via Apple Inc.'s online iTunes App
Store:

 

ImageVis3D Mobile lets iPhone users easily display, rotate and otherwise
manipulate 3-D images of medical CT and MRI scans, and a wide range of
scientific images, from insects to molecules to engines. This free app
is based on computer software from the university's Scientific Computing
and Imaging (SCI) Institute

 

AnatomyLab allows students to conduct a "virtual dissection" by
providing images of a real human cadaver during 40 separate stages of
dissection. Just hit the "View Cadaver" button. The software, which
sells for $9.99, was designed by biology Professor-Lecturer Mark Nielsen
and two University of Utah students, including his son. 

 

My Body, a scaled-down version of AnatomyLab, sells for $1.99 and is
intended for the general public, including "anyone curious about what
their body looks like," Nielsen says. 

 

Another iPhone app from the SCI Institute is in development. Named
ViSUS, it now allows users of desktop and laptop computers - and soon
iPhones - to quickly and easily analyze and edit massive image files
containing hundreds of gigabytes of data.

 

[snip]

Visualizing in Three Dimensions

 

ImageVis3D Mobile is based on similar software for desktop and laptop
computers. It performs "3-D volume visualization" or "volume rendering,"
which means "it makes realistic 3-D pictures from medical image data and
other scientific and engineering data," Johnson says.

[snip]

 

View a Cadaver - in 40 Layers

 

AnatomyLab had its roots when Nielsen, who has worked at the university
24 years, coauthored an anatomy textbook. Nielsen and Shawn Miller, a
University of Utah Ph.D. student in anthropology, then designed software
on DVD named "Real Anatomy" to accompany the text. "It allows you to
dissect a cadaver on a computer," Nielsen says.[snip] 

 

[snip]

 

"It's aimed at students who want to learn anatomy," Nielsen says.
"There's no substitute for real dissection, but a lot of students in the
undergraduate world don't have access to cadavers in anatomy lab. So we
tried to provide them with a realistic lab setting on their phone."

 

MyBody - which Nielsen calls "a watered-down version of AnatomyLab for
the general public" - went on sale in August. Nielsen now is preparing a
third iPhone application "to help people learn the muscular system in
body."

 

Massive Images in the Palm of Your Hand

 

Meanwhile, the SCI Institute is proceeding with development of an iPhone
version of ViSUS. [snip]

 

The iPhone app can be used by scientists, doctors, engineers or "anybody
who needs to manipulate or view lots of high-resolution images, whether
photographs, medical images like CT scans or geographic images like you
would find in Google Earth satellite images," says Johnson.

 

[snip]

 

"We are able to view pieces of that interactively on the iPhone," either
looking at the entire image (at lower resolution) or zooming in and
looking at parts of the image in high resolution - at a faster speed and
with less processing than software such as Google Earth, Johnson says. 

 

The images can be displayed, manipulated and analyzed on a PC or laptop
- and soon on an iPhone - even though the image data remain on a server.
"That's the cool thing," says Johnson. "You can have the data sitting
elsewhere, yet you can still view it, display it and manipulate it on
your iPhone," even though "the data set size can be much, much larger
than the memory on the iPhone."

 

[snip]

 

Links too full press release and appropriate links available at 

 

[ http://tinyurl.com/yznfm6j ] 

 

BTW: !!! Thanks To Gary Price / The Resource Shelf / For The HeadsUp !!!

 

Enjoy !

 

/Gerry 

 

Gerry McKiernan

Associate Professor

Science and Technology Librarian

Iowa State University Library

Ames IA 50011

 

gerrymck at iastate.edu 

 

 There Are No Answers, Only Solutions / Olde Irish Saying

 

The Future Is Already Here, It's Just Not Evenly Distributed

Attributed To William Gibson, SciFi Author / Coined 'Cyberspace