Quicktime virtual reality technology in light microscopy to support medical education in pathology

Abstract

The new computer-based interactive technologies in medicine, such as virtual reality (VR), have revolutionized education. The use of virtual microscopic images would be invaluable in the training of cyto-histopathologists. However, due to the vast amount of digital information on a scanned, conventional cyto-histological slide, which is enormous by current data storage standards, these systems are expensive and not widely used in pathological medicine. The authors propose an inexpensive system based on quicktime virtual reality (QTVR) technology (by Apple Computers Inc.), which accommodates a wide area of a slide at high magnification, generating a 'virtual slide' which makes it possible to navigate by conventional input devices. Commercial softwares that stitch consecutive, adjacent images of cyto-histological preparations onto a QTVR panorama were used. QTVR files have the ability to stand on their own as self-contained, multimedia applications and also have the ability to generate multinode scenes by means of 'hot spots'. QTVR 'movies' can be played on Macintosh or Windows platforms, and on major web browsers. Virtual slides by QTVR is an inexpensive system of high educational value, which allows the creation of multimedia databases of cyto-histological preparations that can exist on an internet server or can be distributed on removable media.

Factors to keep in mind when introducing virtual microscopy

“…Due to additional functionalities that a physical microscope cannot provide, virtual microscopy is a promising new tool, offering a wide range of new applications in the fields of education, research, diagnosis and quality control (http:// www.bacuslabs.com, http://virtualmicroscope.osu.edu) [2,4,7,10,13,15,18,20,24,26,27].…”

“…The decision about which cases are to be presented in a course no longer depends on the availability of a large amount of representative tissue but exclusively on didactics. Cytopathology courses [7,19,27] or slide seminars in subspecialties traditionally relying on small biopsy samples or needle biopsies such as haematopathology, dermatopathology (http://vmic.unibas.ch/patho/seminar, http://www.pathmax. com/apiii/exp.html), hepatopathology or nephropathology (http://vmic.unibas.ch/patho/seminar) can now be offered to a large audience.…”

Lossy compression in diagnostic virtual 3-dimensional microscopy—where is the limit?

“…It represents the recent development in virtual microscopy, which is already widely applied in cytopathologic or histopathologic teaching [1][2][3][4][5][6][7], proficiency testing [8,9], or virtual tumor banking [10]. The use of virtual microscopy in diagnostic applications was discussed [11][12][13] and tested in cervical cytologic examination [14], but it is still not established in diagnostic pathology due to a lack of technical standards and further outstanding investigations on the reliability of this technique.…”

Multilayer Image Grid Reconstruction Technology: Four-Dimensional Interactive Image Reconstruction of Microsurgical Neuroanatomic Dissections

“…The application of QuickTime Virtual Reality to anatomic dissections and histology offers 3D environments, albeit with limited interactivity (15,22,31,33). Early publications reported the use of commercially available QuickTime Virtual Reality software for anatomic image reconstruction and display (2,3,10,23).…”