ImageVis3D Mobile – New iPhone apps allow for detailed analysis of human body in 3D

Written by vlad

We’re getting used to hearing about new weird and wonderful apps for the iPhone, everything from cosmic ordering to your own personal voodoo doll app.

The biggest problem with iPhone apps these days is the sheer number of them, tens of thousands of them in fact, so you basically have to sort out the treasures from the trash.

We were fortunate the other day to stumble upon a trio of new apps that could prove pretty useful.

The apps, available in Apple’s iTunes store, were developed by University of Utah researchers, who say they could make life easier for medical professionals and students as well as patients.

So let’s take a look at them:

• ImageVis3D Mobile – This app allows the user to manipulate, display and rotate 3D images from CT (computerized tomography) and MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scans, as well as other images. It is free to download and is based on software from Utah University’s Scientific and Computing and Imaging Institute (SCI).

• AnatomyLab – If you want to view a virtual dissection of a human body (unless you are a medical student then I can’t imagine why you would), activate the “view cadaver” button. The app, which costs $9.99, allows the user to view no fewer than 40 different stages of dissection of a real human body.

• MyBody – Basically a watered down version of AnatomyLab, developed with the general public in mind. It basically gives the viewer an idea of what the human body looks like inside and out, but not so detailed that it’s meant for medical students. It’s cheaper, too, just $1.99.

The researchers at SCI are developing another iPhone app: ViSUS, which already enables those with a laptop or desktop computer to view, edit and analyze massive image files.

Both ImageVis3D Mobile and ViSUS will “help people visualize and manipulate large amounts of image data,” said Chris Johnson, director of the SCI Institute.

Apparently many medical professionals are already buying AnatomyLab in order to show images to their patients to help explain a diagnosis or injury. Johnson said Image Vis3DMobile could be used for this as well, using the patient’s own scan image.

So don’t be too surprised next time you’re at the doctor’s and he whips out his iPhone to show you what’s wrong.

Welcome to life in the 21st century.