The Next Generation Visible Human Thorax

The thorax specimen is cut at a resolution of 100 microns. The cutting started on Tuesday March 12, 2002 and will last for about 27 days. The specimen is an 81 year old male and the arteries and veins have been injected with colored plastic. We anticipate cutting each day from March 12, 2002 through March 19, 2002 from 6 am through 10 pm in an attempt to section nearly an inch per day. This broadcast of the cutting process, via live satellite feed, will be shown at the American College of Cardiology Conference in Atlanta on March 17, 18 and 19, 2002. There will be one camera on the specimen, one camera on the cutting team and another roving camera that might be on the segmentors or other interesting aspects of the project.

We will be attempting many new things with this specimen:

100 micron resolution
Long days of cutting (getting closer to the goal of 24 hrs per day)
High contrast injected arteries, veins, esophagus and bronchi
Segmentation & rendering of the high contrast structures on a slice-by-slice basis
Segmentation and classification of slices as they are cut
Live video broadcast of the process