| Virtual Reality (VR) has enormous potential as a technology that can enhance teaching and training. In recent years, VR has emerged as a powerful means for interacting with scientific data in a variety of domains. It provides a new way to help scientists explore and understand their data.; Displaying volume graphics has long been a challenge because it requires expensive computation power. In recent years many specialized hardware systems have been released for the purpose of fast texture mapping. The SGI Onyx2 workstation has a built-in 64 Mega-byte volume texture memory. By taking advantage of this capability, we can interact with volume data in near real time.; Most health care professionals begin their studies with a foundation in anatomy. The Visible Human Male has become an accepted standard of computer-based anatomy. However, the enormous size of this dataset has caused problems in displaying and interacting with it directly. By taking advantage of current high-end graphics hardware, we have developed a volumetric virtual environment that provides the ability to help people interact with the volumetric Visible Human dataset. The application enables the user to explore the exterior and interior of a virtual human body in a natural and intuitive way through a hybrid of two-dimensional and three-dimensional interfaces. This application could be useful to medical education, surgical training, and surgical planning. |
