THE VISIBLE HUMAN PROJECT

The Visible Human Project data sets are designed to serve as a common reference point for the study of human anatomy, as a set of common pub lic-domain data for resting medical imaging algorithms, and as a testb ed and model for the construction of image libraries that can be acces sed through networks. The data sets are being applied to a wide range of educational, diagnostic, treatment planning, virtual reality, artis tic, mathematical, and industrial uses by more than 800 licensees in 2 7 countries. But key issues remain in the development of methods to li nk such image data to text-based data. Standards do not currently exis t for such linkages. Basic research is needed in the description and r epresentation of image-based structures and in the connection of image -based structural-anatomical data to text-based functional-physiologic al data. This is the larger, longterm goal of the Visible Human Projec t: To link the print library of functional-physiological knowledge wit h the image library of structural-anatomical knowledge transparently i nto one unified resource of health information.