Chinese visible human data sets and their applications

Abstract

The research on digital visible human is of great significance and application value. The US VHP created the first digital image data set of complete human (male and female) in 1995. To promote worldwide application-oriented VHR, more visible human data sets representative of different populations of the world are in demand. The Chinese Visible Human (CVH) male (created in Oct. 2002) and female (created in Feb. 2003) project achieved greater integrity of images, easier blood vessel identification, and were free of organic lesion. The most noteworthy technical advance of CVH Project was construction of a low temperature laboratory, which contributed to prevention of small structures (including teeth, concha nasalis, and articular cartilage) from falling off of the milling surface. Thus, better integrity of images was ensured. So far, we have achieved acquisition of five CVH data sets and their volume visualization on PC. 3D reconstruction of some organs or structures has been finished. The work of segmentation of a complete data set is also under way. Although there is still a distance to go to make visible human meet the application-oriented needs in various fields, we're taking our first step toward future application by acquiring new data sets, performing segmentation and setting up a platform of computer-assisted medicine. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.