Anatomy Studio II: A Cross-Reality Application for Teaching Anatomy

TL;DR

This paper introduces a cross-reality Virtual Anatomy teaching framework enabling collaborative, real-time dissection and visualization for university students, enhancing anatomy education through VR and interactive tools amid pandemic-related educational shifts.

Contribution

It presents a novel Virtual Anatomy system integrating VR, collaborative dissection, and interactive visualization, building on the Visible Human Projects for enhanced educational engagement.

Findings

Effective tool according to anatomist feedback

Supports collaborative real-time dissection

Integrates VR with interactive 2D tablets

Abstract

Virtual Reality has become an important educational tool, due to the pandemic and increasing globalization of education. This paper presents a framework for teaching Virtual Anatomy at the university level. Virtual classes have become a staple of today's curricula because of the isolation and quarantine requirements and the increased international collaboration. Our work builds on the Visible Human Projects for Virtual Dissection material and provides a medium for groups of students to do collaborative anatomical dissections in real-time using sketching and 3D visualizations and audio coupled with interactive 2D tablets for precise drawing. We describe the system architecture, compare requirements with those of previous development, and discuss the preliminary results. Discussions with Anatomists show that this is an effective tool. We introduce avenues for further research and discuss collaboration challenges posed by this context.