Software Vault: The Diamond Collection/The Diamond Collection (Software Vault)(Digital Impact).ISO/cdr16/io0395.zip/FTUR02.TXT

Text File | 1995-02-25 | 7KB | 166 lines

VIRTUAL DIAGNOSIS
by Carl Gawith

    Imagine for a moment that you have been
reduced to the size of a red blood corpuscle. That
would make you just the right height to go walking
through one of your own unreduced capillaries.
Suppose, also, that it's a few years from now, that
you've been diagnosed as having an aneurysm on a
blood vessel in your brain, that the doctor feels
there is no alternative to surgery if you are to
avoid the inevitable result of a rupture in that
vessel, and that your chances of surviving the
surgery are just about even.
    Imagination is great, isn't it?
    Since we agree on how fine imagination is,
maybe we can use it to help you decide whether the
surgeon should start cutting. Since we also agree
that the time is in the future, we can use a
technological development that will become
generally available any year now: real-time virtual
imaging of a human body; yours, in this case. And
that advance will let you take the walk I mentioned
earlier. First, though, let's cover some background.
    Virtual imaging, or virtual reality (VR),
is the use of a computer to see a simulated object
or objects from a position that we do not occupy,
while keeping the viewing options (and more) that
we would have if we were really there. The "real-
time" aspect comes in when we use VR software to
view something that exists, seeing things that are
actually happening as we watch from our new
position, with full freedom of movement.
    We can choose to turn to the left at any
time, and the scene on our monitor will reflect the
change in view that would accompany a turn like
that in the real world; an object that was ahead
will slide off the right side of the screen. We can
decide to move forward, and a person or thing that
is in front of us will appear to become larger.
    That kind of activity, by itself, would
rapidly lose most of its entertainment value.
Besides, logic tells us that it would be less
expensive, not to mention easier, to just walk,
drive or (possibly) even to fly in our desired
direction of travel than to go through all that's
required to simulate motion in the computer.
    I set up this scenario for the specific
reason that it is not always easier to do those
things in the real world; in fact, it's sometimes
impossible.

Get the client involved
    The architect who creates a design for an
office tower knows it is vital to involve the
client in the concept. Usually that has been done
by making a small-scale tabletop model that the
customer can walk around, getting a feel for the
look of the building and how it will blend or
contrast with structures in the area. Often it's
necessary to construct a part of the interior
space of the new building in a warehouse, so that
those who will be approving the project can "live"
in their new office complex and get acquainted
with its interior space relationships.
    How much money and time do you suppose
could be saved by constructing a new building
entirely within a computer's memory, then entering
the front door of this digital building and
visiting any office? All before the commitment to
lay a single brick has been made?
    This approach is being used today in
designs ranging from airliners to zoos.

Well, back to the cursor tablet
    The world's largest manufacturer of
commercial jet aircraft is currently flight-
testing an entirely new airliner. With engines
roughly the diameter of many airliners' bodies,
it was developed in engineering departments that
had no drawing boards. That's a result of the use
of computer-aided design (CAD), but a side benefit
of this technology is that, for the first time,
the manufacturer has developed an airliner without
physical structural and systems mockups.
    For those who aren't familiar with the
term, a mockup was an assembly that simulated part
of the finished plane. Structural mockups showed
how the load-bearing elements of the design would
fit together while allowing for necessary
complications such as electrical, hydraulic, and
air conditioning systems. Specialized mockups were
built to check the operation of doors and controls,
or to be sure that it would be possible for a
worker to reach a component for installation or
maintenance. The mockup was built from wood,
plastic and/or metal, and filled an area in the
plant large enough to hold the same part of a real
airplane.

    No more. Mockups now exist only in computer
memory, but they're used in the same way as the
dusty, space-hogging physical mockups of the past.
It's fascinating to watch the monitor while a three-
dimensional human shape slides past ducts and
structure toward an electronic component, possibly
demonstrating where changes in access provisions
need to be made.
    A computer graphics file in work is called
a model. A VR model can be effective for studying
traffic flow or the relationship of elements to
their system.
    Of course, in basic VR the user's interface
with the model is purely visual, and even that
contact takes place through the limited field of
view provided by a computer monitor. But what if it
were possible to feel a wall with your hand, to
kick a closed door with your toe, and to limit
total visual input to the model? With an adequate
interface, you could do almost anything in the
model that could be done in the real world.
    That interface exists. A helmet replaces
the monitor, and the user's hands and feet are in
data gloves and boots, where they make inputs to,
and receive stimuli from, the program. Since the
helmet contains a separate image source for each
eye and tracks head and eye movement, the
application has the ability to create a perception
of depth and to use an accurate viewing point and
angle.
    Even arcade games are beginning to sprout
VR features, and it won't be long before you can
pay your money and take part in some famous
historical battle.
    All of which, of course, has nothing to do
with the walk through your capillary we discussed
earlier, except that any who were unfamiliar with
the concept may now have a better feel for virtual
reality.

If it's Friday, this must be the left lobe
    The live tour of your brain's circulatory
system will be possible when we can feed into a VR
program the data generated (as it's being used) by
a medical scanner, creating a three-dimensional
model of a part of the human body. So just imagine:
you're hiking along inside one of the capillaries
of your own brain. The walls alongside are close
enough that you can nearly touch them both at once;
then you begin to notice that the corridor is
becoming roomier. You can see that the tube ahead
has a visible bulge; in fact, as you step out into
this aneurysm, it's so wide and high that at your
present apparent size it looks like that airliner
we were just talking about could fly through there,
and the wall
thickness at its thinnest point resembles the film
of a soap bubble.
    One look at how that vast balloon compares
with your normal blood vessel may be all that's
needed to help you decide in favor of surgery, as
well as giving you a reason to appreciate the value
of real-time virtual imaging.

        Copyright 1995 SeeJay Publications