The Visible Human ProjectTM: a resource for anatomicalvisualization

摘要

The National Library of Medicine (NLM) has long been a worldleader in the archiving and distribution of the print-based images ofbiology and medicine. NLM has also been a pioneer in the use of computersystems to encode and distribute textual knowledge of the life sciences.NLM's long range planning effort of 1985-86 foresaw a coming era whereNLM's bibliographic and factual database services would be-complementedby libraries of digital images, distributed over high speed computernetworks and by high capacity physical media. The NLM Planning Panel onElectronic Imaging recommended that NLM should undertake the building adigital image library consisting of computerized tomography (CT) andmagnetic resonance (MR) images, and cryosection images of arepresentative, carefully selected and prepared male and femalecadaver-the “Visible Human ProjectTM”. The maleand female Visible Human data sets are now being made available througha license agreement with the NLM. The data sets are supporting a widerange of educational, diagnostic, treatment planning, and commercialuses. The value of this national resource in the public domain increasesthrough its application. Its utility will continue to grow as relateddatabases are attached to it, and as more attributes are given to itsimage elements