[Sig-bwp] iPhone The Body Electric > Apps Visualize Human Anatomy

[gerrymck]

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