The human body, searchable in 3-D

May 11, 2011 | Source: Technology Review Biomedicine

BodyMaps, a 3-D visual search tool, showing inner brain (credit: Healthline and GE Healthyimagine)

The first online 3-D interactive search tool for the human body has been developed by Healthline Networks, a company that provides medical information to consumers online, and GE Healthyimagination, a web-based platform.

BodyMaps, a web-based 3-D visual search tool, allows users to view and navigate the human anatomy, male or female, down to the finest detail — from the muscles and deep muscles to the nerves, arteries, vessels, and bones.

As a user mouses over the text, the section of the body in the image is highlighted, and vice versa if a user mouses over the image. At the bottom is a scrubber that lets the user rotate the body 360 degrees.

There is also an anatomy list for each body section  the user chooses to view — the heart even has a cross-section view and a diagram of blood flow while the knee shows each layer of connective tissues.