VirtualAnatomy

Understanding anatomy on real, individual 3D models

This poses a major challenge for medical experts in diagnosis and treatment. All the more important, then, is training on many different real-life examples. Body donors, who make their bodies available for dissection courses at university hospitals, offer these opportunities. However, they are limited and not available everywhere, at all times, or to everyone. Often, the only option that remains is learning from an idealized average body in textbooks, atlases, and a handful of apps. Reality then often looks quite different.

With our virtual didactic anatomy system to support medical education and continuing training, we will in future enable trainees to learn human anatomy interactively on individual virtual 3D models, easily via the web and at any time. This applies not only to medical students, but also to trainees in nursing, chiropractic, and physiotherapy, and even to school pupils.

It works on the basis of individual, real image data from computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging. It allows learners to explore and understand anatomy and its individual variations in 3D space, and moreover to interpret the images generated by imaging procedures.

What emerged from the project

VirtualAnatomy emerged from a highly successful collaboration between Dornheim Medical Images GmbH and the Institute of Anatomy at the University Hospital Magdeburg, together with the Chair of Visualization at the Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg, and is based on the 3D technology of the Dornheim Segmenter. The project results fed into the further development of our interactive 3D and learning applications.