|
Handy interactive web resources
provide 3D options
for studying blood
and bones
By Elizabeth
Boyle
Aug. 30, 2011
Memorizing the name
and location of the
human hand’s 29
bones or
understanding the
arm’s intricate
network of veins and
arteries may now be
a bit easier with a
new, free resource
that offers students
an interactive way
to study human
anatomy.
The
website,
published by the
Ohio University
Heritage College of
Osteopathic Medicine, presents PDFs and videos showing 3D visualizations of human
anatomical
structures. With the
click of a mouse,
users can spin each
structure around in
any direction, zoom
in and out, turn on
or off individual
bones or soft
tissues, or even
make certain
features
transparent.
“Ultimately,
the goal is to put
the user in control
of what aspects of
anatomy they want to
see,”
explained
Chang Ying-Chien
Professor of
Paleontology and
Professor of Anatomy
Lawrence Witmer.
“It provides an
extra means for the
students to really
engage with the
material.”
Witmer, whose
research lab
developed the
visualizations, said
that while OHIO
medical students are
already taking
advantage of the
tools, he expects
anyone from high
school biology
teachers to
undergrad anatomy
students to make use
of them. They are
freely available and
can be downloaded in
several resolution
sizes, meaning that
once a student or
teacher has accessed
them online they can
use them anywhere
their computer can
go. The PDFs require
nothing more than
the
free
Adobe Acrobat Reader, and the videos can run on Apple’s freely downloadable
QuickTime.
“High school biology
classes will
probably really like
the skeletal stuff
because they learn
the bones, which are
labeled in the
visualizations,” he
explained.
For now, users can
study a hand, arm or
skull, but the
scientist plans to
add more options.
(He also offers an
educational
3D visualization of
an alligator as a result of a collaborative project with the University of
Missouri.)
And while students
might find similar,
commercialized
options of
comparable tools
online, those often
rely on computer
models generated by
graphic artists. The
medical school’s
visualizations,
which are derived
from actual human
bodies, offer a
closer parallel with
real life
To accomplish that,
Witmer and his team
worked in
partnership
O’Bleness Memorial
Hospital. They
injected the veins
and arteries of a
human cadaver
provided as part of
the medical school’s
Body Donor Program
with various
substances that show
up under a
CT scan,
which produces a
series of X-rays
taken from many
angles.
With the help
of research
associate
Ryan Ridgely and
doctoral students
William Porter and
Ashley Morhardt, the
group combined the
scans with animation
software to generate
the 3D
visualizations.
The painstaking
process is well
worth it, Witmer
said. It’s something
he often does in the
course of research
on
prehistoric animals. In fact, the National Science Foundation has funded many of those
projects as well as
the technology he
uses for the
visualizations.
Additional funding
for the human
anatomy
visualizations was
supplied by OU-HCOM.
“The software that we use
costs thousands of
dollars, and it
takes us a long time
to create these in a
way that anyone,
anywhere can use
them without having
to invest in the
hardware and
software,” Witmer
said. “But it helps
train our medical
students, plus it’s
open-access, which
means that people
all over the world
can make use of it.
It’s just a
tremendously
interactive tool
that we’re basically
giving away.”
|
