Methods of virtual reality (VR) offer new ways of human-computer inter
action. Medicine is predestined to benefit from this new technology in
many ways. Virtual environments can support physicians in their work,
alleviate communication between specialists from different fields or
be established in educational and training applications. For the field
of visualization and analysis of three-dimensional anatomical images
(e.g. CT or MRI scans), an application is introduced which expedites r
ecognition of spatial coherencies and the exploration and manipulation
of the 3D data. To avoid long periods of learning and accustoming and
to facilitate work in such an environment: a powerful human-oriented
interface is required allowing interactions similar to the real world
and utilization of our natural experiences. This paper shows the use o
f eye tracking parameters for a level-of-detail algorithm and the inte
gration of a glove-based hand gesture recognition into the virtual env
ironment as an essential component of the human-machine interface. Fur
thermore, virtual bronchoscopy and virtual angioscopy are presented as
examples for the use of the virtual environment. (C) 1998 Elsevier Sc
ience Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.