The Media School

Animated operating software

2 February 2011

BU animators and their operating software that’s set to revolutionise medical training.

A Bournemouth University (BU) animation academic is developing software that could revolutionise the training of medical practitioners.

Professor Jian Jun Zhang and his team have effectively simulated an operation, with animated soft tissue, organs and touch sensitive tools that accurately portray the look and feel of surgery.

Jian who was born in China and has worked at Bournemouth University for 15 years said: “Medical visualisation and simulation has a great potential on many fronts: quality of life, cost saving and better and more efficient training for junior doctors.”

He continued: “In terms of core technology, computer animation shares a lot of common ground with medical visualisation. This places us in an advantageous position to purpose this research.”

As well as enjoying the complex scientific research and challenge of implementing a user-friendly software programme, there’s another motivation behind Jian’s project. “The expense of the modern health care services makes me feel we all have an obligation to help improve the quality and reduce the costs,” he said.

Although the software is in the early stages it has a lot of potential for further development. Jian hopes the work will inspire other researchers, medical practitioners and engineers to invent and produce better medical products using modern computer visualisation technology.

He added: “I hope our work evolves into market products benefiting the front line medics. They can be used to train doctors, help plan surgical procedures and dry-run operations to identify possible complications.”