Creation of 3-dimensional anatomical models using mobile phone applications
Objective: Technological advancements have been introduced, in many forms, into the educational process. Formal teaching and learning are increasingly complemented by new technologies which fostered the active-learning approach. Using anatomical specimens has been proven to be crucial for understanding and learning by students. Our research aims to digitize this resource so that it’s available to students at any time and location.
Methods: Our group used photogrammetry to create 3D anatomical models from plastinated specimens. We only used a smartphone with the Polycam App to capture numerous pictures of the same object from different angles and stitch them together. The Polycam app uses the mobile phone’s sensors for image processing and gyroscope to map out where the phone is currently in space. By moving around the model, the app will automatically snap photos in an overlapping manner. The user needs to walk one round around the object. To facilitate selflearning, we used Sketchfab to add labels to important landmarks in the 3D model.
Results: Using non-expensive technologies, we were able to create 3D anatomical models to better our students’ learning.
Conclusion: Students are quite pleased with the created 3D models. We expect this to have a positive impact on students’ performance and learning experience during our evaluation. 3D images will be helpful for medical and allied health science students to learn anatomy remotely.