ANN ARBOR, Mich. – When you step inside the University of Michigan's 3D Lab, all you can really say is "Wow."
I probably said it dozens of times as I explored the potential of a 3D virtual environment -- an environment that can reveal mysterious secrets not seen by the unaided eye.
In reality, I'm sitting in an office chair, but that's not what I see. I feel like I'm sitting in a car, with my hands at 10 and 2, adjusting my rearview mirror and shifting. It's very real and very intense.
The virtual interior of this car is actually an acoustic model where the colors represent different sound intensities, and it's just a taste of how this system can be used.
Ted Hall is an advanced visualization specialist at the 3D Lab.
"It's actually part of the library, so this is one application, but we have other applications from different areas," said Hall.
That makes Hall a librarian of sorts, with a major twist.
"It's about data," said Hall. "It's not about printed pages necessarily."
So how it does work? On the most basic level:
"You're being tracked," explained Hall. "The game controller and the glasses you're wearing are being tracked by these reflective markers and these motion capture cameras."
A virtual cadaver lab is one application they showed off because they knew, as a doctor, I'd totally love it. They were right!
From my perspective, it was as if I was standing next to the body, putting my finger in the heart, putting my finger in the liver, putting my finger on her nose. I was able to peel away layers of the body to see the organs beneath, with the ability to look around them. It's gross anatomy -- without the smell!
"The way this was collected from the visible human project, they have a male and a female donor cadavers that were frozen in a nondestructive fashion," said Hall.
While this isn't completely ready to replace gross anatomy for students, it's an additional tool to immerse yourself into a human body without destroying anything as you do a virtual dissection.
"For the student, it's the 'wow factor,'" said Dr. Alex DaSilva, a University of Michigan neuroscientist specializing in pain research.
DaSilva and his students use the technology to see - almost literally get inside -- the brain of a patient having a headache.
"It's changed the way that I teach, it's changed the way that I connect with science and the way that I foresee the future," said DaSilva.
While the 3D Lab can be used for some really fun applications, like exploring a virtual castle or hanging out in a 3D model of the Yost Ice Arena, this technology opens a window to new discoveries. It struck me that the use of this to show anatomy is almost too simple. The true beauty of this is that you can see special relationships that would be otherwise completely hidden if you weren't able to dive in and see connections.
Hall recalled one researcher in particular:
"We left him in here for about an hour one day and came back and found him seated cross legged on the middle of the floor almost like meditating surrounded by his data, and he sort of calmly announced that he had seen a pattern that he hadn't seen before."
A pattern leading to a research breakthrough.
Then there's broader real world applications.
"We've had some work with atmospheric and oceanic sciences, we still have to develop that more, but that's coming," said Hall. "Being able to see it in 3D makes it easier to comprehend. You can't understand it by looking at a lot of numbers and charts, but seeing it in 3D and being able to see what's connected and what's not connected makes it much easier to comprehend.
To learn more about the 3D Lab and some of the projects being done there, click here.