Former University of Toronto (U of T) student Brendan Polley has created a new 3D app that allows users to learn about the human anatomy while simultaneously keeping all parts, including organs, vessels, and nerves, in their respective places.
The app, called Form & Function 3D, works in conjunction with the Leap Motion Controller, a small USB device that connected to a desktop, where it recognizes small movements such as hand gestures and translates it onto the desktop screen without the hand ever touching the device, according to Polley.
With Form & Function 3D, the Leap Motion Controller allows the user to hover their hand over the device and virtually explore the anatomy that is displayed on the screen.
Polley, who worked as a high school biology teacher before completing a master’s degree in Biomedical Communications at U of T’s Mississauga campus, said the app is “an educational tool meant to return a sense of space to learning comparative anatomy.”
He said he intends for his technology to be used in undergraduate anatomy courses, where understanding spatial relationships is an essential learning goal.
In classrooms today, anatomy is explored through dissections, but Polley said rising costs and decreased availability of specimens have become an obstacle.
Polley’s app can be used by purchasing a Leap Motion Controller for $80.
“Educational institutions are beginning to use more interactive and virtual anatomic models,” Polley said.
The former U of T student said his research development is inspired by the work of a Japanese artist named Iori Tomita, who Polley discovered years ago.
“He makes these amazing stains of preserved specimens that let animals appear translucent while at the same time highlighting their internal anatomy,” he said.
“It was the first time I saw someone visualize the entire anatomy of an organism as it would appear in life. All the complexity was visible and understandable. It just wasn’t accessible, at least not with a mouse and keyboard.”
That’s when Polley decided to develop his own technology to do just that.
Robert Reisz, Polley’s content advisor for the project, said Polley was a “simply superb, hard working, dedicated, and very talented” student.
Though he ran into some problems, Reisz said Polley “was always in control” and that his technology offers “great potential for learning in a digital age.”
And Polley’s new 3D technology has been well received.
Aside from the media attention, Polley said a few of the professors from U of T have expressed interest in using the app in their anatomy courses.
“They [the professors] think it will be good for supplementing dissection labs as well as for courses in which there is currently no hands-on lab component,” he said.
Polley said he plans on submitting Form & Function 3D to Leap Motion’s app store, Airspace.
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