Abstract:

Introduction:
In recent years there has been an important evolution in the interaction with the environment and information. There are emerging technologies that cover different areas in which new tools are specifically developed like in engineering, sciences, medicine… It is one of the main trends in recent decades: analysing emerging preferences in education and studying which are the most impactful and with greater future consolidation. These trends include different applications, softwares and devices that revolutionise teaching compared to classical methods from the last century. This change also occurs in the field of Human Anatomy. It is an environment in which many new devices have recently been developed. Nowadays mobile phones, tablets, podcasts, videos and radiological images are used. There has been a revolution in the post-processing of these images allowing the creation of three-dimensional anatomical models. These are new tools that allow a better morphological comprehension, with special interest in areas such as the orbit (small structure formed by 4 walls and 7 bones). These devices allow the zooming, rotation and enlargement of the images, assuming an advance in the teaching of Human Anatomy, not only in the classrooms but also in the clinical practice.

Objectives:
The aim of our study is to show new ways of studying Human Anatomy. We create a tool for improving spatial perception, with the construction of three dimensional anatomical models. These new devices reaffirm the need to include new technologies in education. It is also focused in a concrete area such as the orbit and the visual pathway, given its shape (pyramidal shape, walls formed by 7 different cranial bones, small volume, large number of structures inside) and interest because of the confluence of different medical specialties. We also explain new possible destinations such as 3D printing.

Material and methods:
We use radiological images from all sections (axial, sagittal and coronal) from two different radio-diagnosis devices: computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance (MR). The devices we use are: Helical TC General Electrics, Helical TC Philips, 1.5 teslas RM General Electrics, 1.5 teslas RM Phillips. We use the images from the database of the radiodiagnosis service of the Complejo Asistencial Universitario de Salamanca and the Affidea Center. Software used: amira, vitrea.

Results:
Three dimensional vision has become an interactive tool with emerging applications. These applications include both teaching purposes (we value the opinion of students through a satisfaction survey) and also for clinical purposes. We obtain detailed images of the orbit, and compared to two-dimensional radiological images we can observe more details and we have the possibility of interaction.

Conclusions:
Our work aims to demonstrate the advantages of these new systems. Among them we can find: helping medical training, facilitating new study tools in this area, accessibility, morphological comprehension, improvement of spatial perception, establishing a better anatomo-radiological and clinical correlation, carrying out a wider differential diagnosis, possible application for the planning of technically complex surgeries, practicing surgical procedures on anatomical models before the patients themselves, possibility of printing 3D models.

Keywords:

Education, technology, 3D applications, radiological images, human anatomy, orbit.