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Virtual Autopsy On a Multi-Touch Table Surface

Posted by Soulskill on from the over-my-dead-body dept.

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."

13 of 72 comments (clear)

  1. Incredible learning tool by Da_Biz · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Incredible learning tool by CodingHero · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:Incredible learning tool by commodore64_love · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Watching that video with the "layers of skin and bone peeling away" reminded me of some classic 1980s games. Like the Intellivision's Microsurgeon - the power of 16-bit gaming baby! ;-) LINK - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ms_yLmub6PM

      IBM PC variant (check out the amazing 2 color graphics and hi-fidelity "beep" sound) ;-) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5azQdQR35E

      Commodore Amiga variant - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAR_c89TjEc

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    3. Re:Incredible learning tool by frenchbedroom · · Score: 3, Funny

      Getting off your lawn right now.

  2. So, when will Virtual Surgeon for Wii be out? by lena_10326 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Waiting with anticipation.

    --
    Camping on quad since 1996.
    1. Re:So, when will Virtual Surgeon for Wii be out? by strateego · · Score: 4, Informative

      So, when will Virtual Surgeon for Wii be out?
      Waiting with anticipation.

      Will these suffice?
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trauma_center_new_blood
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trauma_Center_Second_Opinion
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trauma_Team

      Or maybe the Nintendo DS versions??
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trauma_Center:_Under_the_Knife
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trauma_Center:_Under_the_Knife_2

      --
      Got Extra Money?
  3. I think by Dyinobal · · Score: 3, Funny

    I think I've played this before, it's called operation! I was never very good at it. I always preferred to play doctor instead.

    1. Re:I think by commodore64_love · · Score: 4, Insightful

      >>>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.

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    2. Re:I think by commodore64_love · · Score: 3, Insightful

      >>>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."

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
  4. Hey honey, how's that diet? by SnarfQuest · · Score: 3, Funny

    Look honey, I bought us a new dining room table. Take a look at what it can do. Why aren't you eating, aren't you hungry?

    --
    Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
  5. What you miss at a real autopsy by dorpus · · Score: 3, Informative

    I used to work at a hospital, and they let me sit in on one. What you miss is the yellow skin of corpses, and the fact that they still make noises from various orifices when you move the body parts.

    The gall bladder really is green -- it's not an artifact of textbook coloring.

    Everyone said I will get sick from watching a real autopsy, but it didn't feel any worse than watching a horror movie. I wore a mask, so didn't smell much.

  6. Re:solution in search of a problem by natehoy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    --
    "This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
  7. Re:solution in search of a problem by demonlapin · · Score: 3, Informative

    Er, no. Autopsy has many components; MRI or CT would supplant only the most cursory examination. Organs are weighed; they are examined both grossly and microscopically. The vasculature is examined carefully - there's no way to do that with dead people without cutting them open, because they can't circulate the contrast material needed to see them on a scan. Toxicology can be collected. And so forth.