Virtual Autopsy On a Multi-Touch Table Surface

An anonymous reader writes "Engadget points out one of the more interesting ways to use a multitouch table surface so far. Researchers at Norrkoping Visualization Centre and the Center for Medical Image Science and Visualization in Sweden have fitted such a device with stunning, volume-rendered visualizations of high-resolution MRI data. If you've ever wondered what the inside of a human being really looks like, but lacked the grit or credentials to watch an autopsy in the flesh, check it out."

Comments

Incredible learning tool

[Da_Biz]

I had the pleasure of taking Human Anatomy and Physiology a few years ago. The professor was superb, but our school didn't have the resources to afford a cadaver lab.

Pictures and plastic models are OK, but there are times when being able to visualize something like this would greatly help the learning experience.

Re:Incredible learning tool

[CodingHero]

I had the pleasure of taking Human Anatomy and Physiology a few years ago. The professor was superb, but our school didn't have the resources to afford a cadaver lab.

Pictures and plastic models are OK, but there are times when being able to visualize something like this would greatly help the learning experience.

I agree that visualizing greatly helps the learning experience in science and engineering and that tools like this would be very helpful in the areas of medicine and biology. A cool next step to this would be some sort of "virtual surgery" that could pay attention to what both hands were doing at once.

Re:I think

[commodore64_love]

>>>I always preferred to play doctor instead.

Good thing your childhood was in the past and not the present. Today's kids "play doctor" using cellphones, and they are getting charged with distributing child pornography. We just had another case yesterday where a girlfriend/boyfriend wanted to see each other naked, so they sent photos, and now they are charged with a crime. Ridiculous. If you can't even take a photos of your own body, then you no longer own it. You've become a serf.

Also a distinction should be made between simple nudity and sex.
The latter is pornographic; the former is not.
The view of a human body without clothes is not something to fear.

Re:solution in search of a problem

[natehoy]

I think autopsies are a perfect first problem to solve. First, you can keep the corpse intact which makes the autopsies less distasteful to the family (assuming they want a viewing). Second, you get a lot more data about the tissues as they are intact at the time of the scan. Third, you keep a lot more detailed data than pictures and/or a videotape and a recording from the technician - you can review the data anytime you want.

And, finally, if there turn out to be some adverse tissue effects from the scanners, their patients aren't really going to mind all that much.

Re:I think

[commodore64_love]

>>>a difference between nudity as such and nudity with a sexual connotation

Which basically means you can define ANY nudity as having a "sexual connotation". It's a slippery slope. For example I might just be taking videos of my vacation in Brazil (where the women and children wear little or nothing), but if my local District Attorney Harry Prude got a hold of it, he might label it "sexually explicit" and throw me in jail.

It is better to define nudity as just nudity, and therefore protected freedom of expression, until there's an actual sex act occurring.
.

>>>isn't "playing doctor" intended to be more than simple nudity

Really? Man my neighbor Sally duped me! She told me "look but don't touch."