With 3D glasses in the lecture hall: A new approach to anatomy training is being developed at the medical faculty of the University of Linz and the Medical University of Graz. The way in which students are taught the depths of the organs and the smallest medical structures of the body is more reminiscent of a trip to the cinema than an anatomy lecture. On Tuesday, the interactive virtual anatomy lecture in 3D was broadcast for the first time in the anatomy hall of the Medical University of Graz.
In the so-called medSpace of the Johannes Kepler University (JKU) in Linz, anatomy is being taught in a completely new way: students and teachers wear 3D glasses to gain insights into the anatomy of the human body and to pass on knowledge. To this end, MRI and CT data from living patients were merged to create photorealistic three-dimensional images of organs, glands, blood vessels, muscle strands, tendons and more, which can now be explored larger than life, from every angle and continuously zoomable in a stereoscopic 3D representation, as Franz Fellner, head of the Department of Virtual Morphology at the JKU in Linz, demonstrated on Tuesday. In front of a huge LED wall in the large lecture hall of the anatomy department in Graz, the first viewers were shown in 4K resolution and with a 120 Hertz refresh rate how the anatomical structures function and how they change in a diseased state.
Fellner initiated “Virtual Anatomy” in Linz, which takes medical training to a whole new level. Some of Fellner’s “Virtual Anatomy” lectures have already been transmitted from the JKU to the Medical University of Graz as a 2D video stream. In return, Niels Hammer, who holds the chair for macroscopic and clinical anatomy at the Medical University of Graz, transmitted the teaching content on anatomical preparations to Linz via 2D video stream.
You sit, look and marvel
Starting this semester, both universities have stepped up a gear: the 3D lectures from the JKU medSPACE in Linz are shown live on the new large LED wall at the Med Uni Graz – also in stereoscopic 3D with 3D glasses. There is room for up to 500 students here. You sit, look and marvel at the spatial impression of depth with which the anatomical structures are conveyed.
Since the audio signals and control data for the program are transmitted from Linz to Graz in real time, students at both locations can immerse themselves in the lecture at the same time. In addition, the Medical University of Graz transmits recordings of specimens with a stereoscopic 4K camera live to Linz, which allows students to experience anatomical specimens in 3D in addition to virtual anatomy, as Niels Hammer explained and demonstrated on Tuesday.
The combined application of proven and the latest technologies in anatomy and radiology and the collaboration between the two universities is unparalleled, emphasized Hammer. He spoke of a solid basis “to optimally prepare our students for the medicine of the future.” Other partners in the collaboration are the Ars Electronica Futurelab and the software experts from Siemens Healthineers.
Equipped with the latest equipment
In 2022, the Austrian federal government launched the “Uni-Med-Impuls 2030” program, which, in addition to more study places, new professorships and a budget increase, also aims to create more space for digitalization in training. As part of the program, the expansion of digital technologies in anatomy at Med Uni Graz and JKU is being specifically promoted. Both locations will be equipped with the latest equipment in this field.
In Graz, the presentation of the inter-university collaboration also marked the opening of the largest anatomy conference in the DACH region (Germany, Austria, Switzerland), which is taking place in the newly built anatomy department of the Medical University of Graz. Around 350 guests from more than 15 countries are expected. Austrian researchers are contributing a total of around 30 papers, ten of which are from Graz.
