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A Computerized Three-Dimensional Atlas of the Human Skull and Brain

Year: 1993
Type: article
Abstract: In this issue, Tiede et al (1) describe in text and still photographs their computer software, which must be experienced in person to be fully appreciated. Attendees of the lnfoRAD section of RSNA '91 who permanently ringed the authors' exhibit had the opportunity to do just that. They weren 't just looking at a real-time interactive atlas of neuroanatomy and neuroradiology, capable of displaying structural and functional information on each of millions of voxels, with a full-blown three-dimensional ray-tracing module thrown in for good measure. They weren't just peering through the looking-glass monitor screen as a solid-modeled human head rotated in space, shedding layer after layer of color-coded anatomy at the user's whim. They were looking into the future . Most of the work of software engineers goes unnoticed and unappreciated. The artisans of the information age shape data with tools of logic. Few give much thought to their progeny: gizmos that control our automobile fuel injectors, navigate our airliners, tally our grocery store purchases, and reconstruct our magnetic resonance images. Hackers occasionally bestow upon a wellwritten software program the status of neat hack or elegant code. Only rarely does a program so transfix the user that he or she stops trying to discover how they did that and falls under the spell of the illusion. That's magic. What does magic have to do with neuroanatomy and neuroradiology education? Readers of this journal understand the three-dimensional relationships between neuroanatomic structures after having viewed thousands of clinical neuroimaging studies. Our younger colleagues in medical schools, residencies, and fellowships have no such fund of experience. They plod
Language: English
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2343331093
FWCI: 3.938
Cites: 8
Cited by: 34
Related to: 10