Virtual Finger Lets Scientists Navigate 3D Images of Complex Medical Structures
Researchers from the Allen Institute for Brain Science have created a new technology, called Virtual Finger, that allows scientists to move through digital images of small structures like neurons and synapses using the flat surface of their computer screens. Virtual Finger's technology makes 3D imaging studies orders of magnitude more efficient - saving time, money, and resources across many areas of experimental biology. Scientists at the Allen Institute have already used Virtual Finger to perform 3D microsurgery in order to knock out single cells, study the developing lung, and create a map of all the neural connections in the fly brain.
Transcript
00:00:08 what finger is a new type of threedimensional um technology to let you see the 3D object better 3D glasses okay let you Seas better it's not like that okay instead it's let you be able to manipulates object like your real 3D finger so it's kind of complimentary to the existing three dimensional technology you can see something outside
00:00:43 but you cannot really manipulate this object watch your finger let you be able to say okay I point here on this particular 2D plan defined by the glass okay I move here and then it automatically translates this 2D location to the actual choose 3D know location of that particular yellow building this key ability let you be able to go anywhere you will have
00:01:08 interest instantly basically without any delay you immediately be able to find out the 3D location or a fairly complicated object you can find out a single location you can actually Define a three dimensional curl you can find out the region of interest to do all different manipulation suppose you have a threedimensional image stack you need to
00:01:38 go through individual sections to find out the location of the interesting object what your finger let you bypass that completely in practice you will have at least 10 times or 20 times or even 100 times better speed originally the project would takes a few years now could be done within you know a few weeks okay or a couple months