D Medical Graphics
9 messages in this thread
I need some advice. I would like to develop a 3-D animated
representation of the complex anatomy of the heart for the purpose of
training cardiologists to do certain procedures. I am a former Apple
II programmer (BASIC and 6502 assembly language), but a novice with
current systems, though I make good use of my Mac LC.
What software would you recommend? I am assuming that I will need to
upgrade to a PowerMac.
Hi Frank,
first of all the computer is not the most important thing. A PPC would
make things a lot faster, but what really matters is the animation
program. To show the complex anatomy of a heart you will need a very
detailed 3D object of a heart. You could try to modell it yourselve,
but that would be very hard especially if you haven't worked with 3D
programs so far. An alternative would be to buy a modell (from
Viewpoint) and only do the animation. The second thing is a good
animation program. If you prefer Mac you have the choice between
several good packages. Strata Studio Pro, Electronic Image,
Animation:Master, Topaz. (I'm sure there are more). Programming is
not required for making animations with these programs. But it will
take some time to learn these programs. If you don't plan to do more
anims yourselve it might be better to let someone do the anim for
you. -David
David,
Your animations on the CompuServe CD look GREAT!!! Congratulations!
I've got some questions on them, but gotta go to work, I'll ask later.:)
Jim Jonah
>> I've got some questions on them, but gotta go to work, I'll ask
>> later.:)
just ask, I don't have secrets. 🙂
-David
David,
Thanks for your reply. Please see my reply to Claude Benoit.
-Frank
> I would like to develop a 3-D animated representation of the
> complex anatomy of the heart for the purpose of training cardiologists
> to do certain procedures.
I've been in biomedical engineering for a few years. The Biomedical
Engineering Institute of Montreal (Canada) has an entire lab devoted
to 3D animated anatomy of the human and dog heart. I used to be in
the modelling group, doing inverse electric field mapping (from the
heart surface to the thorax surface) and 3D image analysis. I can
scrounge more info on the group if you want.
-cb
Thanks for your encouraging reply. I am a cardiac electrophysiologist
and do, among other things, radiofrequency catheter ablation of
bypass tracts and reentry circuits. You may already know about the
field, but it involves using electrical signals through catheters to
localize discrete areas in the heart. The only "visual" tool we have
is fluoroscopy, which is, of course, 2 dimensional. It is a bit of a
struggle to conceptualize 3 dimensionally where you are in the heart
at a given time. Studying plastic models, pictures and cadaver
hearts help, but I though it would be useful to use a 3-D image of
the heart which can be rotated in any plane. One could then "place"
catheters anywhere in the heart and view their orientation. The
major obstacle, I think, is to graphically represent the complex
relationships of the many structures inside the cardiac chambers.
Any information that you might have would be greatly appreciated.
-Frank
> […] and do, among other things, radiofrequency catheter
> ablation of bypass tracts and reentry circuits.
Dry ice was used for the ablation itself, but the localization was
more critical. 'CardioMap II' is a computerized cardiac mappping
system which, given a sock-like electrode mesh tucked around the
heart, can pinpoint the location of re-entries. I remember that there
was an optimization in the software somewhere which could detect
Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome sources very accurately. Last I've
heard of, they were trying an inflatable catheter which contains
electrodes on the surface for intra-ventricular electrocardiographic
mapping. I don't know the state of the project right now, but it ran
on a microVax back them. There was also an offline analysis package
which ran on Silicon Graphics workstations for 3D real-time playback
and propagation analysis.
The research team is composed of R Gulrajani, P Savard and
FA Roberge. One of their article is in CRC Crit Rev Biomed Eng,
16:171-214, 1988. Another good article is: Lorange, M. et al,
"Computerized Construction of a Heart Model Using a CT Scan",
Proc. of the 14th Canadian Med & Biol Eng Soc, Montreal, p.87, 1988.
An oldie, but a goodie is Huijsmans, DP, "Toward Computerized
Morphometric Facilities: A Review of 58 Software Packages for
Computer-Aided Three-Dimensional Reconstruction, Quantification and
Picture Generation From Parallel Serial Sections", Anatomical Records,
216:449-470, 1986.
> […] but I though it would be useful to use a 3-D image of the
> heart which can be rotated in any plane.
I don't know how you can get below an SGI machine. There is
simply not enough 3D graphics power in off-the-shelf PCs and
Macs for that kind of computing.
Hope that helps.
-cb
Claude,
Thanks. I will look up thoses articles.
-Frank