Localization of acupoints on a head based on a 3D virtual body

Abstract

Modern computer science allows powerful and versatile computer-based knowledge representations of acupuncture, one part of Traditional Chinese Medicine. For further research and development of acupuncture therapy, it is critical to define where to accurately localize acupoints onto such a computer based pictorial representation of the human body. Using the segmentation and 3D visualization of the VOXEL-MAN software system, original work for localizing the acupoints on a head based of a virtual body is reported in this paper. The proposed 2D acupoint description links the description taken from literature for locating acupoints in Traditional Chinese Medicine to the data in the absolute reference frame of a 3D virtual body. It offers a simple and useful way for the localization of acupoints on a 3D model, especially one derived from the data from Visible Human Project. © 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.