Immersive Anatomical Scenes that Enable Multiple Users to Occupy the Same Virtual Space: A Tool for Surgical Planning and Education

Abstract: 3D modeling is becoming a well-developed field of medicine, but its applicability can be limited due to the lack of software allowing for easy utilizations of generated 3D visualizations. By leveraging recent advances in virtual reality, we can rapidly create immersive anatomical scenes as well as allow multiple users to occupy the same virtual space: i.e., over a local or distributed network. This setup is ideal for pre-surgical planning and education, allowing users to identify and study structures of interest. I demonstrate here such a pipeline on a broad spectrum of anatomical models and discuss its applicability to the medical field and its future prospects.3D modeling is becoming a well-developed field of medicine, but its applicability can be limited due to the lack of software allowing for easy utilizations of generated 3D visualizations. By leveraging recent advances in virtual reality, we can rapidly create immersive anatomical scenes as well as allow multiple users to occupy the same virtual space: i.e., over a local or distributed network. This setup is ideal for pre-surgical planning and education, allowing users to identify and study structures of interest. I demonstrate here such a pipeline on a broad spectrum of anatomical models and discuss its applicability to the medical field and its future prospects.