One of the core challenges in medical education and practice is getting familiar with anatomy and all of the different parts that make up the human body. There are limits to what can be learned from standard media, so traditionally medical education has used actual cadavers, which have many disadvantages in terms of cost, availability, and ethical issues. A very specific problem is that a real cadaver can only be taken apart once, so only a few students get this first-hand experience. Another issue is that the cadaver only represents one specific state of the body and cannot be used to demonstrate different pathological variations.

A virtual body can avoid all of these problems. Anatomical Eyes is an interactive Virtual Reality installation that allows the user to interactively dissect an annotated virtual human body. This provides users, both medically and non-medically trained, with a reusable tool to gain a better understanding of the structure and components of the human body.

Anatomical Eyes provides a powerful experience and demonstrates the use of Virtual Reality technologies for applications in medical and public education. It takes the gross out of gross anatomy!