Exploring Brains in Virtual Reality

Virtual Reality  

A biomedical engineering student from Portugal has used Leap Motion controller and Oculus Rift Headset to create an app in which you can interact with a 3D reconstruction of a human brain and its network of connectivity graphs.

Filipe Rodrigues, a biomedical engineering student from Lisbon, Portugal has created a way to examine brain connectivity in virtual reality as part of his research.  The system uses a Leap Motion Controller and Oculus Rift headset.

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“In the beginning, I wanted to develop a haptic glove that I could use with Leap Motion in a virtual reality scenario, allowing me to feel the stuff I touched.” He explained, “For example, when I interrupt brain connectivity, I want to feel the vibrating on my fingers. That was the initial goal for my thesis. I’m still working on it, but I got too involved with the software part of it. I’m loving working with Leap Motion so I’ve postponed the glove component of the project a bit.”

"It’s a good way to visualize complex concepts and try to make them as appealing as possible. Leap Motion is a great tool for this."

The experiment uses slices of MRI scans and Multimodal Brain Connectivity Analysis to reconstruct a 3D model of the brain. Using tractography images, the user is able to see how regions of the brain are connected to each other. Based on this information, a matrix can be drawn of all the connected regions.

“Turning a boring 2D [MRI] visualization into a 3D interactive one is a great way of appealing to people who are maybe not from this discipline,” Rodriques told Leap Motion, “It’s a good way to visualize complex concepts and try to make them as appealing as possible. Leap Motion is a great tool for this.”

The goal is that for every interruption your hand makes on the graph, information would pop up about exactly what you’re interacting with. He’d also like to expand the interaction design to make the project as accessible as possible for the general user.

SOURCE  Leap Motion

By 33rd Square

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