InteractElsevier Delivers 3-D Interactive Anatomy Learning Tools

PHILADELPHIA, February 23, 2010 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ --

- Students, Researchers can 'Walk Through' a Body; Virtual Reality Meets Anatomy, as Advanced Gaming Technology Brings Human Body to Life

- New, Award-Winning Tools Augment, Even Replace Medical School Dissections

Elsevier, the world's leading content provider of science and health information, today announced the availability of the InteractElsevier (http://www.interactelsevier.com) Series. Powered by CyberAnatomy, an Iowa-based company that creates interactive learning systems for students, the innovative 3-D interactive anatomy series applies advanced gaming technology to reviewing, learning and teaching anatomy. InteractElsevier has two levels of offerings - Web interactive (online) and virtual reality (stereoscopic).

Developed for medical students and researchers and recently honored with the 'Best in Class' Award (http://www.interactivemediaawards.com/winners/ certificate.asp?param=71903&cat=1) from Interactive Media Awards (IMA), the 3-D interactive anatomy tools have already been purchased by several schools through institutional subscriptions, which allow students and researchers to access InteractElsevier individually and at their own pace. Because plain text and atlases cannot accurately portray how three-dimensional structures are organized and related to each other, InteractElsevier provides much additional value.

"InteractElsevier's interactive 3-D anatomy gives students and faculty more time and flexibility to teach and master anatomy, which typically includes hundreds of terms and structures and interrelationships between body functions. InteractElsevier is unique in its ability to strip away overlying structures, or make them transparent, further adding to the clarity that this tool adds to the complex structures of the body," said Jonathan Teich, M.D., Elsevier Chief Medical Informatics Officer and an associate professor at Harvard Medical School. "The launch of InteractElsevier, along with many other innovative learning tools, reflects Elsevier's commitment to use the latest technologies - gaming, virtual reality, and the Web - to foster scientific and medical learning and teaching."

Visually stimulating and the first truly interactive product of its kind, InteractElsevier can provide advanced high quality guidance and training to students on various educational and training levels, and can even be used by medical professionals in need of a 'refresher.' InteractElsevier also addresses several persistent problems at medical schools and the teaching of anatomy: limited medical school time for teaching, lack of faculty and an inadequate number of cadavers. Tools available on InteractElsevier include:

    - Imaging - correlated imaging to interactive 3D models

    - Anatomy Builder - construct the body by region and by body system

    - Virtual Dissection - remove structures to understand complex
      relationships

    - Labeling - fully interactive, dynamic labels for structures

    - Netter Plates - compare the best loved Atlas to your 3D structure

    - Layers/Peeling - features like transparency, peel and hide enable
      understanding of spatial relationships

Interact Elsevier's Interactive 3-D anatomy software is available in two looks: Netter texture and computer graphic realism. Netter's 3-D interactive anatomy is modeled from digitized paintings of Frank H. Netter, M.D., a physician, artist and medical illustrator who created 214,000 medical illustrations in his lifetime, 900 of which comprise Netter's Atlas of Human Anatomy. InteractElsevier used Netter's art to form the surface of 3-D models and then augmented the software with more than 100 Netter plates, which are correlated to the 3-D models.

Elsevier's 3-D Interactive Anatomy includes models with computer-generated textures. Correlated within this version are more than 100 plates from the 40th edition of Grays's Anatomy, which celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2008.

InteractElsevier's 3-D interactive anatomy tools feature an intuitive, flexible interface, correlated CTs and MRIs, a searchable terminology database, exploratory exercises, quizzes, and real-time interactivity. Students and faculty can use the tools to create a body through the assembly of bones, muscles, arteries and nerves and then approach regions such as upper or lower limbs, or systems such as skeletal, muscular or circulatory. By using interactive buttons, they can rotate the body or peel, hide, label and make structures transparent.

Teachers and students can access InteractElsevier's 3-D interactive anatomy tools in several formats, including online (web interactive) and in full stereoscopic 3-D (virtual reality). Clinicians can engage students and peers with stereoscopic 3-D in lectures, labs or at conferences and exhibits, while faculty, students and clinicians can conduct personal, self-directed explorations on anatomy via the Web.

For more information, please visit http://www.InteractElsevier.com.

About Elsevier

Elsevier is a world-leading publisher of scientific, technical and medical information products and services. The company works in partnership with the global science and health communities to publish more than 2,000 journals, including The Lancet (http://www.thelancet.com) and Cell (http://www.cell.com), and close to 20,000 book titles, including major reference works from Mosby and Saunders. Elsevier's online solutions include ScienceDirect (http://www.sciencedirect.com), Scopus (http://www.scopus.com), Reaxys (http://www.reaxys.com), MD Consult (http://www.mdconsult.com) and Nursing Consult (http://www.nursingconsult.com), which enhance the productivity of science and health professionals, and the SciVal suite (http://www.scival.com) and MEDai's Pinpoint Review (http://www.medai.com), which help research and health care institutions deliver better outcomes more cost-effectively.

A global business headquartered in Amsterdam, Elsevier (http://www.elsevier.com) employs 7,000 people worldwide. The company is part of Reed Elsevier Group PLC (http://www.reedelsevier.com), a world-leading publisher and information provider, which is jointly owned by Reed Elsevier PLC and Reed Elsevier NV. The ticker symbols are REN (Euronext Amsterdam), REL (London Stock Exchange), RUK and ENL (New York Stock Exchange).

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SOURCE Elsevier