BioDigital is releasing its API to the public, allowing developers to integrate the 3D human body models into their apps and services.
Over the past two years, the New York-based startup has worked with more than 100 organizations spanning all sectors of healthcare to tailor its virtual human body, comprising 7,000 objects modeled by hand, to specific use cases.
About.com is one of those partnering with BioDigital to provide interactive visualizations for common health conditions.For instance, National Institutes of Health used and is still using BioDigital to map bacteria in the body, while nonprofit MyFace — which provides treatment to patients with craniofacial conditions — relies on the software to educate doctors all around the world.
“We’ve seen the profound impact that 3D tech has had on video games for the last 15 years, and more recently on geo-browsers and how we navigate planet earth,” says BioDigital founder Frank Sculli. “Nowhere does this make more sense than representing the human body.”
TechCrunch describes BioDigital as Google Maps for the human body though we don’t expect it to be as widely used as Google’s mapping service. Nevertheless, developers will be able to use the API to visualize health data in a move that could generate some real-world action.
About.com is one of those partnering with BioDigital to provide interactive visualizations for common health conditions for end users. Medical professionals on their end are able to get new information quickly analyzed and consumed, while athletes can see which movements inflict pain or stress on their bodies, making it much easier to understand how to avoid them. And we’ll likely be seeing many other novel use cases of BioDigital’s API.
“The human body is this incredible system of systems, and there’s an infinite amount of detail,” says Sculli. “So we can start mapping cellular mechanisms, and genomic and brain activity, and all of this information that’s being collected in masses from research and wearables, and make it consumable for people.”