Aperio: A System for Visualizing 3D Anatomy Data Using Virtual Mechanical Tools

We present Aperio - an interactive real-time system for visualizing complex organic-shaped 3D models such as anatomy data or medical data. Aperio employs an interaction model based on a mechanical tool analogy via a small set of virtual "metal" tools, such as rods, rings, cutters, and scalpels. The familiar and well-differentiated tool shapes, combined with their initial pose and metallic appearance, suggest a tool's function to the user. Cutter tools are designed to create easily-understood cutaway views, and rings and rods provide simple oriented path constraints that support rigid transformations of models via "sliding", including interactive exploded view capabilities. GPU rendering provides realistic real-time "solid cut" previewing of surface-mesh models. We demonstrate Aperio using a human anatomy data set and present user studies to provide supporting evidence of Aperio's interaction simplicity and its effectiveness for visualizing model spatial interrelationships.