Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!apple!well!hlr
From: Marc de Groot (marc@kg6kf.AMPR.ORG)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: Applications for virtual reality technology
Summary: Physician daydreams of VR applications
Keywords: medical imaging, virtual reality applications
Message-ID: <15970@well.UUCP>
Date: 5 Feb 90 18:14:06 GMT
Sender: hlr@well.UUCP
Lines: 28
Approved: hitl@hardy.u.washington.edu


A friend of mine just mailed this to me.  His name is Dr. Gary Evans.  He
is a pediatrician who recently got a demo of virtual reality at VPL Research.
His Internet e-mail addresses:
gary%n6paw@kg6kf.ampr.org
sparkgap@UCBCMSA.BERKELEY.EDU


Hi Marc,  I was on call last night and in attending to millions of things I
had the occassion to daydream about potential medical applications of artif.
reality:

  One of the trickier things in medicine is imaging complex structures such
  as the heart.  It occurred to me that using noninvasive techniques such as
  ultrasound, nuclear magnetic resonance and x-rays (CT scanning modes) and 
  using algorithms (already existent -- that reconstruct three dimensional
  images and project them onto 2D planes) one could do marvelous things with
  artificial reality.

  Think of it:  a scan is made of the heart and its associated vascularity.
  The examiner wearing the appropriate data glove and visor reaches out
  and moves aside a large blood vessel or organ that had been obsuring the 
  view of a structure behind it ... or, another example - the examiner could 
  reach right in to a chamber of the heart and manipulate a valve to look at
  its attachments to the cardiac wall all in full 3D.   The potentials are 
  endless!! 

Gary.