Apple Charts the Human Body
The Visible Human Project
No matter how diverse and focused the various fields of medicine are, I believe there is a common technical thread: each must visualize the human body to form diagnoses or hypotheses. Having worked over the last twenty years as a researcher and laboratory instructor in the medical and biological sciences, I have found from health sciences to nursing and dentistry, the world of medicine uses the human body as its basis. Pathologists, for example, must read histological slides. Dentists often use intra-oral cameras to view and send real-time movies of a procedure to a specialist. And epidemiologists must turn statistical data of the human body into charts and fields for a presentation to their colleagues.
With that in mind, imagine what it would be like to focus on the entire human body, both male and female, and even to explore any portion of the body using 2D and 3D “fly-throughs.” Called the Visible Human Project, the massive undertaking has resulted in one of the largest imaging databases funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Library of Medicine (NLM). Under the direction of Donald Jenkins, NLM project coordinator, Visible Human spans the United States between nine institutions.
“The team relies on the robust memory and computing power of the Power Mac to handle high-speed image processing.”
Data of Massive Proportions
Part of this project resides here at the University of Michigan, Department of Cell and Developmental Biology. Driven by the power and speed of the Apple Power Mac, an Anatomy Content Team headed by Dr. Thomas Gest is labeling thousands of anatomical points throughout the human body to link to future data sets describing terminology, position, and function. These labels will aid researchers, clinicians, and students in navigating through the body, and provide real-time links with other resources on the Internet.
In a quiet room, dedicated Power Mac computers download images from the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center. The Power Mac computers handle the information load generated by manipulating an image equaling a 0.33mm section of the female cadaver. To get an idea of the magnitude of data, the Visible Human Male data set consists of MRI, CT, and anatomical images and is 15 gigabytes in size. The Visible Human Female data set has the same characteristics as the male cadaver with one exception. The axial anatomical images were obtained at closer intervals, resulting in over 5,000 anatomical images with a data set of about 40 gigabytes. Even with a team of seven anatomists, Dr. Gest estimates it will take two years to label every organ and vessel in both data sets.
The team is using Adobe Photoshop to dismantle and label each section into its various components of organ, nerve, blood vessel, and bone. Within a chosen 1mm or 3mm section, each structure is cut out using the Magic Wand tool and then copied to its own layer for labeling. The team relies on the robust memory and computing power of the Power Mac to handle high-speed image processing. Also, this is their comfort zone: all of the researchers here are accustomed to using the Mac.
When labeling is complete, other related projects are slated to gain momentum. The Anatomy Testbed, located in the University of Michigan Medical School’s gross anatomy laboratories, will put the graphic and data information to the test, with an iMac stationed at each anatomy table for use by medical and dental students. This will help the university in their search for new ways to improve anatomy education. The Visible Human Project also will create a production system that leverages the Internet to deliver human datasets to medical and research communities.
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