AnatQuest Browser FAQ

    Browsers and Databases
        What is AnatQuest?
        What is the Visible Human?
        What is AnatLine?

    Images
        Does AnatQuest serve all or part of of the Visible Human images?
        What are the types of images contained in AnatQuest?
        What are cross section images?
        What are rendered images?
        How many rendered images are in AnatQuest?

    Viewers
        What is a "viewer"?
        What is the "rendered image viewer"?
        What is the "cut-away viewer"?
        What is the "detailed image viewer"?

    Views
        What is an "axial view"?
        What is a "coronal view"?
        What is a "sagittal view"?

    Browsing and Navigation
        How to look for a rendered anatomical object?
        How to save or print an image?
        How to locate a cut away view?
        What is a selection box?
        What are the horizontal and vertical selection lines?
        How to reposition a selection box?
        How to reposition a selection line?

    Viewer Option Settings
        How to adjust the detailed window size?
        What are the detailed window sizes?
        How to adjust the compression ratio for images?
        What are the image compression choices?

    Miscellaneous
        Why can't I find all rendered images of the body in the database?
        Why do the viewers stop functioning?
    

Browsers and Databases

• What is AnatQuest?
  AnatQuest is a web-based interface for viewing high resolution Visible Human anatomical images. These 4096 by 2700 24bit images are created by scanning the 70 mm photographs taken of each slice during the cryosectioning of the human cadavers. AnatQuest provides viewers for rendered anatomical organs and the cut away slices of the body. AnatQuest allows browsing over images through an adjustable size viewing area, downloading portions of the 33-meg image slices to the browser as needed, thereby making it feasible to view the images even over slow Internet connections.
  
  
• What is the Visible Human?
  It is a project for the creation of complete, anatomically detailed, image representations of the normal male and female human bodies. It consists of transverse CT, MR and cryosection color images of representative male and female cadavers. The male was sectioned at one millimeter intervals, the female at one-third of a millimeter intervals. More detailed information is at: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/research/visible/visible_human.html
  
  
• What is AnatLine?
  AnatLine is a web-based interface for retrieval and downloading of the high resolution Visible Male image files, the segmented image overlays, and their anatomical labels; all bundled using an in-house file format. For more detailed information look at: http://anatquest.nlm.nih.gov/Anatline/GenInfo/index.html

Images

• Does AnatQuest serve all or part of the Visible Human images?
  AnatQuest offers labeled rendered images of the thoracic region of the Visible Male. This is the only region which has been aligned, segmented, and labeled. However, you can look at all slices of the Visible Male through the AnatQuest cut-away viewer.
  
  
• What are the types of images contained in AnatQuest?
  AnatQuest images are from the scanned 70mm color photographs of the male cadaver. The surface rendered images are mostly from the thoracic region.
  
  
• What are cross section images?
  They are images of the cross sections of the male cadaver.
  
  
• What are rendered images?
  They are the 3-dimensional surface renderings of the anatomical objects from the 70mm color images. Most of these images are labeled.
  
  
• How many rendered images are in AnatQuest?
  There are about 202 surface rendered images of Visible Male mostly from the thoracic region.
  
  

Viewers

• What is a "viewer"?
  It is a browser interface, implemented as an applet, for selecting and displaying of images.
  
  
• What is the rendered image viewer?
  It is an interface for displaying the rendered anatomical objects. It consists of a menu of anatomical names, a thumbnail image of selected object, and (on clicking the thumbnail) a detailed window displaying the rendered image in full resolution.
  
  
• What is the cut-away viewer?
  It is an interface for viewing body slices from the top, the front, and the side. It consists of thumbnail viewers, and a detailed viewer which also displays the labels of the structures under the mouse cursor.   Labels are only available for the "thorax" (chest) area.
  
  
• What is the detailed image viewer?
  It is a window which displays the detailed image for the thumbnail area under the selection box. Currently one detailed window is opened and reused in order to prevent clients from inadvertently running out of memory. The ability to open up and manage multiple detailed windows side by side for comparison, will be made available soon.

Views

• What is an axial view?
  It is a horizontal cut away slice of the body as seen from the top.
  
  
• What is a coronal view?
  It is a vertical cut away slice of the body as seen from the front.
  
  
• What is a sagittal view?
  It is a vertical cut away slice of the body as seen from its left side.

Browsing and Navigation

• How to look for a rendered anatomical object?
  From AnatQuest click on `Anatomic objects from male chest area'. Selecting an anatomic name from the menu displays a thumbnail of the anatomic object; clicking on the thumbnail displays the detailed view of the object.
  
  
• How to save or print an image?
  
  From the detailed view window clicking on the save/print button brings up the image in a new browser window. Use the browser File pull-down menu to save or print the image. Afterwards close the browser in order to go back to the image viewer.
  
  
• How to locate a cut away view?
  The cut away views are controlled around three axis:
  • X-axis is controlled by dragging the vertical line on the axial view, which updates the sagittal view.
  • Y-axis is controlled by dragging the vertical line on the sagittal view, which updates the coronal view.
  • Y-axis is alternatively controlled by dragging the vertical line on the axial view, which updates the coronal view.
  • Z-axis is controlled by dragging the horizontal line on the coronal view, which updates the axial view.
  An alternative to dragging the lines is to use the corresponding arrows below the images.
  
  
• What is a selection box?
  It is a small rectangle on the thumbnail images showing the area for which the detailed image is desired.
  
  
• What are the horizontal and vertical "selection lines"?
  These control the three axis of the cut away viewer. Please refer to
  `How to locate a cut away view'.
  
• How to reposition a selection box?
  By dragging the selection box.
  
  
• How to reposition a selection line?
  By dragging the selection line.

Viewer Option Settings

• How to adjust the detailed window size?
  The detailed window size controls the size of the detailed image, which affects the image retrieval and display time. The detailed window size can be changed through the detailed window size pull-down menu on the cut-away viewer.
  
  
• What are the detailed window sizes?
  
  The choices are:
  • small: suitable for low-speed modem connection. The window size is: 448x320 pixels.
  • medium: suitable for ISDN connection. The window size is: 640x448 pixels.
  • large: suitable for high speed links like DSL and T1. The window size is: 640x640 pixels.
  • full: This selection is for viewing the entire slice in the detailed window. Due to the large image sizes the transfer time is high for low speed connections. The full image sizes are for the three body orientations:
    • Axial: 2048 x 1216
    • Coronal: 2048 x 5634
    • Sagittal: 1216 x 5640
  
  
  
• How to adjust the compression ratio for images?
  The images are compressed by lossy JPEG, but any loss of detail has been judged to be imperceptible. The Image Compression menu controls the compression ratio which affects the trade-off between the viewing speed and the image quality. Higher compression generates smaller image sizes, which are faster to transfer over the network, at the cost of slightly lowering the image quality.
  
  
• What are the image compression choices?
  The choices are:
  • High compression: for low-speed connections. This is the default state. The compressed image is 33% of the size of the uncompressed image.
  • Low compression: for high-speed connections. The resulting image quality is high. The compressed image is 95% of the size of the uncompressed image.
  • Medium: providing a medium compression and a medium quality setting of 55%.
  • Low/Medium: providing a low-to-medium-compression and a low-to-medium-quality setting of 75%.
  • Medium/high: providing a medium compression and a high quality setting of 45%.

Miscellaneous

• Why cannot I find all rendered images of the body in the database?
  Because the database contains mostly the rendered objects built from the 70 mm images of the Visible Male chest region. The other body regions have yet to be aligned, segmented, and labeled in order to be rendered in the future.
  
  
• Why do the viewers stop functioning?
  The applets stop functioning when you go to a different page. To restart them do a shift-reload: click on browser's reload button while holding the shift key.