Price: Various Score: 9/10 By Shaun Campbell
Anatomy is a notoriously hard and complex subject to learn, but it’s also one of the most common University-level courses taken by students around the world. Whether you’re a medical student, science undergrad or practicing nurse, physiotherapist or massage therapist – a solid knowledge of human anatomy is essential.
3D4Medical.com has developed six amazing apps that make learning anatomy easier and more interactive than ever before. Available for both the iPhone and iPad, the range of apps covers most of the body systems including skeletal, muscular, cardiovascular, urogenital and digestive.
Featuring high-resolution 3D images of the body, the apps present all the most important anatomical structures in excellent detail. You can zoom in on any part of the body to get a closer look and then you simply swipe across the screen to rotate the muscle, bone or organ. Most structures have several views available including anterior, posterior, lateral, superior and inferior perspectives.
Each app has a “flag” feature that allows you to self-test on any part of the body. Tapping the flag button will label all the important structures in that view, and you simply select a flag to view the name of a particular structure and tap again to view function and origin/insertion information. The index is another indispensable feature of each of the 3D4Medical.com apps – if you need to find a particular bone, muscle, nerve or vessel you simply scroll down through the index or type in the name of the structure and it will come up on screen automatically. There’s also a quiz option which is a fantastic way to test your skills.
The price range across the six apps is quite varied and depends on the amount of content that the apps provide. Naturally, the muscular and skeletal systems are content-heavy and this is reflected in the price. While $19.99 may seem expensive, you really can’t get the same level of anatomical detail and interactivity from a similarly priced book. Having said that, some of the apps could benefit from some updates that include some important, but currently missing structures/views such as the cranial nerves in The Nervous System and the cranial fossae in The Skeletal System Pro.
While these anatomy apps for iPhone and iPad use computer-generated 3D images, they are not unfortunately 3D in a 360 degree sense. When viewing the skull, for example, swiping to the side will change the view from an anterior view to a lateral one, but this is simply an interchange between two images. The apps are still incredibly useful, but if the developer were able to update these apps to feature some 360 degree structures they would be truly amazing.
The Urogenital System – $4.99 iTunes link [iPhone/iPad]
The Skeletal System Pro – $19.99 iTunes link [iPhone/iPad]
The Muscle System Pro – $19.99 iTunes link [iPhone/iPad]
The Cardiovascular System- $17.99 iTunes link [iPhone/iPad]
The Digestive System – $4.99 iTunes link [iPhone/iPad]
The Nervous System – $14.99 iTunes link [iPhone/iPad]
