Chinese scientists said they would finish cutting sections of a donated body next month in a bid to collect enough data for China's first virtual being program.
Scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Capital University of Medical Sciences, Central China University of Science and Technology and First Military Medical University are working together to create the first virtual human being in the country.
"After finishing the section-cutting in March, we will use a computer to bring the section data together to form a virtual human being," said Zhong Shizhen, who is in charge of the slicing and modeling of the body.
The donated body selected for the sectioning is a 28-year-old man from Central China's Hunan Province, who died in April.
Scientists have to slice the 1.66-meter (5.45-foot) tall and 58-kilogram (128-pound) body into tens of thousands of 0.1 mm-thick sections before they begin computer-synthesizing the 3D virtual being.
They first photograph and analyze every piece of the section with digital cameras and scanners, then produce a 3D human physiological structure based on the data collected.
They had, for the first time, separated the veins and arteries of the body during sectioning, said Zhong.
He said if they succeeded in creating China's first virtual being, scientists would continue to synthesize other sorts of virtual beings, and probably engage in the high-precision synthesis of human organs.
Zhong said efforts to create a virtual female being would soon follow.
China is the third country in the world to synthesize a virtual human being through sectioning, behind the United States and the Republic of Korea.
(Xinhua News Agency February 8, 2003)
