The Virtual Dissection Table: A 3D Atlas of the Human Body Using Vectorial Modeling from Anatomical Slices

Teaching morphological sciences’ suffers from the lack of human corpses for dissection due to ethical or religious issues, worsened by increasing students’ demand for educational anatomy. Fortunately, the technological revolution now put at our disposal new virtual reality tools to teach and learn anatomy. These multimedia tools are changing the way students engage and interact with learning material: they can engage in meaningful experiences and gain knowledge. This evolution is particularly true for the virtual dissection table, based on 3D vectorial atlases of the human body. This chapter describes the manual segmentation methodology from the anatomical slices of the Korean visible human project with Winsurf® software. Although using the same slices, our segmentation technique and refinement of the 3D meshes are quite different from the Korean team (Ajou University, Seoul, Korea). The resulting 3D vectorial models of the whole body of men and women include 1300 anatomical objects. After improvement with a modeler (Blender® version 4.79), we export 3D atlas into a “.u3d” format to take advantage of the powerful interface of the 3Dpdf Acrobat® file working in four different languages. The user interface is simplified by a touch screen to manipulate and dissect the virtual body with three fingers easily. Anatomical regions, systems, and structures are selected and controlled by javascript buttons. We developed this educational project under the Auspices of the Unesco chair of digital anatomy (www.anatomieunesco.org).