woman are not representative of those of a young woman. The specimen contains several pathologies, including cardiovascular disease and diverticulitis. Discoveries By studying the data set, researchers at Columbia University found several errors in anatomy textbooks related to males, regarding the shape of a muscle in the pelvic region and the location of the urinary bladder and prostate. License The data may be bought on tape or downloaded free of charge; one has to specify the intended use and sign a license agreement that allows NLM to use and modify the resulting application. NLM can cancel the agreement at any time, at which point the user has to erase the data files. Applications using the data Various projects to make the raw data more useful for educational purposes are under way. It is necessary to build a three-dimensional virtual model of the body where the organs are labeled, may be removed selectively and viewed from all sides, and ideally are even animated. Two commercial software products accomplish the majority of these goals, the VH Dissector from Touch of Life Technologies and "Voxel-Man 3D-Navigator" from the University of Hamburg NLM itself has started an open source project, the Insight Toolkit, whose aim is to automatically deduce organ boundaries from the data. The data were used for Alexander Tsiaras's book and CD-ROM Body Voyage, which features a three-dimensional tour through the body. A "Virtual Radiography" application creates Digitally Reconstructed Radiographs and "virtual surgery", where endoscopic procedures or balloon angioplasty are simulated: the surgeon can view the progress of the instrument on a screen and receives realistic tactile feedback according to what kind of tissue the instrument would currently be touching. Several other educational applications utilized form the visible human project include: multiple interactive anatomy computer software programs (Primal Pictures/Anatomy.tv, Anatomage), multimodality image restoration for hospital patients, body system relationships, and volumetric data. The male data set was used in "Project 12:31", a series of photographic light paintings by Croix Gagnon and Frank Schott, and is the male Caucasian cadaver on the Anatomage Table 6.0 application. See also 3D Indiana Anatomography Insight Segmentation and Registration Toolkit Primal Pictures ZygoteBody Susan Potter References External links Home page of the project, including links to the various other projects that use the data The Visible Human Male: A Technical Report, Detailed history of methods used to prepare the male cadaver and gather image data as published