This Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory project demonstrates how computers "can teach some things better, either by themselves or through synergy with conventional methods." The Whole Frog Project uses 3D digital imaging to provide high school biology classes with the opportunity to explore the anatomy of a frog. The virtual frog dissection kit, a Web-based interactive program, uses "data from high resolution MRI imaging and from mechanical sectioning, together with 3D surface and volume rendering software to visualize the anatomical structures of the intact animal." Sample images from the kit are posted along with a description of the technical aspects of the program. Another goal of the project is to introduce the concepts of modeling and to show how 3D structures and images can be obtained, for example, from MRI imaging (biological specimens), X-ray CT imaging (industrial imaging of non-biological objects), and through "direct generation from mathematical descriptions." Movies of the frog and technical reports are available to download from the website and some of the data files can be accessed through an anonymous FTP site. Another fun feature of the website is the Virtual Frog Builder Game, which lets the user "interactively dissect a (digitized) frog named Fluffy." The online game is also available in Spanish, German, Dutch, French, Italian, and Portuguese.
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