'Avatar' 3D images help Scots medical students

Published on Thursday 4 March 2010 21:39

ADVANCED 3D computer technology, made famous in the animated sci-fi film Avatar, is being harnessed to train a "PlayStation generation" of medical students in Scotland.

Experts at Aberdeen University have joined forces with the Digital Learning Foundation to develop pioneering software which can transform routine medical scans into a 3D image within seconds.

Medical undergraduates can then study the results of the enhanced MRI and CAT scans using special glasses similar to those worn by cinema audiences.

Dr Neil Hamilton, who is leading the research, said the system would allow students to see the human body as never before.

Dr Hamilton, the director of the university's Medi-CAL Unit, said: "We can take an existing medical scan, that has been anonymised, feed it into a computer and have a 3D stereoscopic image ready for teaching within a matter of seconds, rather than weeks.

"We could take a scan of a head injury, for example, input the scan into our system and create a virtual model of the head."