The Visible Human Project

Getting the Data

The initial aim of the Visible Human Project^® is to create a digital image dataset of complete human male and female cadavers in MRI, CT and anatomical modes.

The male dataset consists of axial MR images of the head and neck taken at 4 mm intervals and longitudinal sections of the remainder of the body also at 4 mm intervals. The resolution of the MR images is 256 pixels by 256 pixels. Each pixel has 12 bits of grey tone.

The CT data consists of axial CT scans of the entire body taken at 1 mm intervals at a resolution of 512 pixels by 512 pixels where each pixel is made up of 12 bits of grey tone. The axial anatomical images are 2048 pixels by 1216 pixels where each pixel is defined by 24 bits of color, each image consisting of about 7.5 megabytes of data. The anatomical cross-sections are also at 1 mm intervals and coincide with the CT axial images. There are 1871 cross-sections for each mode, CT and anatomy, obtained from the male cadaver.

The dataset from the female cadaver has the same characteristics as the male cadaver with one exception. The axial anatomical images were obtained at 0.33 mm intervals instead of 1.0 mm intervals. This results in over 5,000 anatomical images. The female dataset is about 40 gigabytes in size. Spacing in the "Z" direction was reduced to 0.33 mm in order to match the pixel spacing in the "XY" plane which is 0.33 mm. This enables developers who are interested in three-dimensional reconstructions to work with cubic voxels.

A recent addition to the male dataset is the inclusion of higher resolution anatomical images. 70mm film taken during the original data collection phase has been digitized at a resolution of 4096 pixels by 2700 pixels where each pixel is made up of 24 bits of color. As with the original anatomical images, there are a total of 1871 of these high resolution images.

A single License Agreement covering use of both the male and female Visible Human Project^® datasets is available, as either a text file or a WordPerfect file. Please make two copies of the agreement and have both signed as originals by your appropriate officials. The agreement requires that you include a brief statement explaining your intended use of the dataset. Send both signed copies of the agreement and the statement of how you intend to use the data to:

Visible Human Project^®
National Library of Medicine
Building 38A, Room B1N-30
8600 Rockville Pike
Bethesda, MD 20894

The agreement will be signed here at the NLM and one of the originals will be returned to you. Included with the signed agreement will be your account and password to the Visible Human Project^® FTP site (if you wish to download all or part of the dataset via the internet), and information on how to purchase the dataset on 8 mm Exabyte or 4 mm DAT tape. The dataset is distributed from the FTP site and on tape in a Z-compressed UNIX TAR format. There are 6 sets of tapes of anatomical images corresponding to 6 body regions: head, thorax, abdomen, pelvis, thighs, and feet. A 7th tape contains all the MR and CT images. Each tape costs $150 in the US, Canada and Mexico, $300 elsewhere. An 8th, "sample", tape is available for the male dataset which contains anatomical images from the entire body at 1 cm increments. A complete set of tapes for either the male or the female costs $1,000 in the US, Canada and Mexico, $2,000 elsewhere.

Sample full scale images from the Male Dataset are available via the NLM FTP site, including:

• Six full color anatomical images and an explanatory README file (look for the files named "*.raw"; please be careful, as each of these images is over 7 megabytes in size)
• Ten CT scan images and an explanatory README file (5 images captured while the cadaver was fresh and another 5 captured after it was frozen, in files named "*.fre" and "*.fro", respectively)
• Six MR images and an explanatory README file (as "*.t1").

Your interest in the NLM's Visible Human Project^® is greatly appreciated.

Michael J. Ackerman, Ph.D.
Project Officer
vhp@nlm.nih.gov