Six years in the making, the world’s first 4D man is set to revolutionize doctor-patient relations.

The age of cutting open cadavers to learn about organs, muscles and bones is past, as are CT and MRI scans to diagnose patients’ ailments.

Now, there is the CAVEman.
Take a photographic tour of the CAVEman and its home, the CAVE.Scientists at the University of Calgary have developed a holographic man that allows researchers to step inside the human body’s different systems.

It is four times the size of the average adult and it is a male. Its bright colors highlight specific body parts and systems—from the veins to the muscles, lymph nodes to nerve endings.

Completed this past May, the larger-than-life hologram looks like a skinless giant taking a nap; he is known as the CAVEman, but prehistoric he is not.

The man is projected into a unique multi-dimensional booth—the CAVE—in which it is possible to walk around. By using a joystick and wearing special goggles, researchers can zoom in and out of the human body, enlarge or shrink it, shift its orientation or isolate bodily systems for closer study.

The projections in the CAVE are caused by software that can be used independently on any size computer.

This software and its projection into an immersive environment could help further the study of diseases and afflictions that have a genetic component, like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, cancer and diabetes. Because the CAVEman can show changes over time, doctors and researchers are able to see the way that cancer develops in the body and responds to certain interventions and therapies.

After the first full human genome was created in 1995, researchers used normal computer screens for body imaging, said Dr. Christoph Sensen, the director of the Sun Center of Excellence for Visual Genomics at the University of Calgary and the lead developer on the CAVEman project.

However, computer screens limit the ability to understand gene expression because it is only possible to see slices of the body. They could not fully understand the role of genes in the development and treatment of certain diseases. “We need space and time. We need virtual reality,” he said.

In developing the CAVEman, Dr. Sensen and his team compiled data collected from all of the available scans currently in use, and combined them into a single three-dimensional picture of the human body, inside and out.

Dr. Chester Tylkowski, chief of Pediatric Orthopedics at Shriner’s Hospital for Children in Kentucky, was thrilled by the demonstrations of the CAVEman. Dr. Tylkowski is a specialist in children with hip abnormalities that result from the changing shape of the hip joint, and has been using MRI and CT scans to complete hand sketches of his patients’ abnormalities.

The use of this four-dimensional model would be “fantastic,” he raved, adding that the current three-dimensional imaging technology is not adequate.

The CAVEman’s fourth dimension (time) would allow him to better see the outlines of the body parts affecting children’s biomechanics. The ability to track growth and the workings of proteins on specific organs over time, he said, would substantially improve diagnosis and treatment.

Future plans for the CAVEman include making it more life-like. “We want to flood blood through the veins,” Dr. Sensen said, adding that replications of swallowing, breathing and other moving parts would be integrated.

There are also plans to add sounds, such as the beating of the heart. The sound will allow for a better understanding of how the processes work, as well as to help in surgery.

The scientists hope to be able to input individual patients’ biodata—in Dr. Tylkowski’s case, the actual size of the hip joint and its malformations—into the software to track how tumors are developing in cancer patients or how medicines affect different organs.

This groundbreaking atlas of anatomy is intended as a teaching tool for medical students and researchers. A scaled-down version that is in development for use on laptops might even replace the standard books used in high school anatomy classes.
Watch four videos that highlight different aspects of the CAVEman system, giving you a glimpse of the future of medical imaging.