In the 1966 sci-fi classic "Fantastic Voyage," a team of medical experts is reduced to microscopic size and injected inside a human being. They engage in a fantastical battle with an army of white corpuscles, take a roller-coaster ride through the cavernous chambers of the heart and get a microbe's view of the human body, in all its Technicolor glory and anatomical wonder.
Pure Hollywood?
Maybe not.
Technologies are under development today that in the not-so-distant future may permit medical researchers to explore
the human body much like the microscopic stars of "Fantastic Voyage" -- by plumbing the depths of the anatomy from within.
It is called virtual reality, or VR, and it is a mind-blowing concept: the use of computers to create an illusion of reality that is so precise, so utterly lifelike as to be indiscernible from the real thing. In its purest form, proponents say, virtual reality will give people a way to enter micro and macro worlds that are too dangerous or impossible to enter otherwise.
Like the human body.
Rutgers University and Bell Labs are working on a VR project that will, in the tradition of the 1966 cinematic explorers, allow medical researchers to hike through the human body like an anatomical forest.
And how might this technological feat be accomplished?
Easy, says Dr. S. Kicha Ganapathy, director of the machine perception research department of Bell Labs: First load scads of data about the human body into a computer. Then use sophisticated computer technologies and VR techniques to "transform" researchers into a small blip on a computer screen that has "eyes" and "ears." Throw in a joystick that allows operators to "feel" whatever the blip comes into contact with, and researchers will be able to wander through the anatomy with the ease of strolling through an open house on a Sunday afternoon.
"It will allow you to move around in the human body the way you would [walk around] a specimen in a museum," says Dr. Ganapathy, a consultant on the Rutgers project.
As envisioned by Dr. Ganapathy, researchers who wanted to examine, say, the blocked arteries of a heart could scale themselves down and, using the blip as a vicarious observer, travel through the congested heart passages for a first-hand look at the problem.
Want to test the elasticity of an artery wall? Push the blip into the wall, then wait for the tactile feedback to reverberate through the joystick. Want a closer look at a tissue section? Use the joystick to navigate deep inside the artery wall, then blow up the picture for a closer look. Better yet, lift out the section and rotate it in a circle, at different angles, just to make sure you don't miss anything.
Virtual surgery is another possibility in the cosmic world of VR.
In a VR environment, doctors could do dry runs of risky procedures on computer replications of actual patients, allowing them to smooth out their technique before stepping foot into the operating room. The upshot: better health care for patients.
That's the idea at Johns Hopkins Hospital, where doctors have been using a VR-based image-processing system for years to produce 3-D, color pictures from CAT scans. Doctors routinely refer to those computerized images to help diagnose ailments and decide on treatments for high-risk patients.
When the system was introduced to the radiology department five years ago, the most it could do was reproduce a 3-D color picture of a section of bone that could be viewed from different angles. Even that modest display took a Herculean effort to complete: Medical technicians from Hopkins and special-effect experts from Lucas Films, the Hollywood studio that produced "Star Wars," spent more than 17 hours working together behind closed doors on the project to produce the first image.
"At the time we thought it was the most incredible thing we had ever seen," recalls Dr. Elliot Fishman, a professor of radiology who was at the maiden screening. "We were totally amazed."
Today, that same image takes less than a minute to complete. And the upgraded system can do much more than flash a picture of a piece of femur: It can call to the computer screen any image -- or any part of an image -- from a patient's CAT scan, providing an electronic porthole through which the body's organs, skeletal structure and circulatory system can be studied in detail. Images can be shrunk, enlarged, rotated and electronically "sliced" an infinite number of ways.
Visualization of images before surgery allows doctors to examine the interior of the human body "as if you were holding it in your hand," says Dr. Fishman.
Those close encounters have had a discernible effect on patient care. Internal studies have found that 30 percent of physicians change their treatment plan after consulting with the computerized patient file.
Dr. Fishman says he hopes to have a system in place by 1996 that will allow doctors to perform virtual surgery on critical-care patients. Using a "mouse," or roller ball, as the electronic "scalpel," doctors could try out several surgical approaches before making a decision on which one to use.
Advocates of VR believe the first proving ground for the new technology will be in the educational arena. Because the technology has the ability to communicate an experience without any of the risks that may be associated with the real thing, some believe VR is the ideal teaching tool.
Ophthalmologists-in-training, for example, currently learn cataract surgery techniques by operating on cadavers and animals, and by watching experienced surgeons who know instinctively from years of practice how much to scrape -- or not scrape -- during a procedure. New surgeons essentially perfect their techniques by operating on live patients.
Using virtual reality, these new surgeons could gain the experience of operating on hundreds of patients without the risk of mangling an eye.
"There is no substitute for a surgeon having performed 1,000 operations. But the question is, how do you get there?" says Dr. Ganapathy.
There is a nearly endless supply of real-world situations, problems and scenarios that beg for VR treatment, proponents say. A meltdown at a nuclear reactor, for example, may pose too many risks for a human being to enter the plant safely. But a repair crew could use virtual-reality techniques to direct a robot to accomplish the actual cleanup.
"Some things are physically impossible, too dangerous or just too expensive to try in real life," says Dr. Ganapathy. "That's where the real application of VR will be."
For an architect, that might mean being able to build a skyscraper in Los Angeles, then destroying it with a catastrophic earthquake -- again and again -- to test the outer limits of material performance. Physicists could enter the nucleus of an atom for a first-hand look at nature's building blocks, astronauts could fearlessly explore space, geographers could wander worry-free into the belly of a gushing volcano.
The commercial appeal of VR is almost intoxicating to companies like American Telephone & Telegraph Co., which sees the new technology evolving into a major communication medium in the 21st century.
AT&T;'s interest is shared by a number of industry heavyweights, including International Business Machines Corp., Digital Equipment Corp., Sun-Microsystems and Fujitsu. Likewise, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Washington in Seattle and the University of North Carolina have set up labs to study virtual reality systems.
Under Dr. Ganapathy, AT&T;'s Bell Labs is looking for ways to use the nation's phone network to transmit VR-based services -- insurance it won't be left in the dust if the VR bandwagon takes off.
The possibilities, as described by Dr. Ganapathy, are intriguing to say the least: How about an 800-line that could magically transport you anywhere you wanted to go, be it a World Series baseball game, Paris' Eiffel Tower or the shopping floor of Macy's in New York? You say you'd rather drop in on a tennis match at Wimbledon, admire Michelangelo's "David" in Florence, whale watch off the Pacific coast? No problem. Just pick up the phone and call. With VR, if you can dream it, you can do it.
One "it" that AT&T; is dreaming of is "telepresence." This virtual meeting would give the illusion that every chair in a boardroom is filled with people -- even though the room may actually be vacant. These humanoid holograms would look, feel and sound just like the real thing, even though the actual bodies behind them might be 3,000 miles away.
These virtual encounters would allow participants to engage in eye contact, gesturing and other valuable non-verbal communication cues that don't come through on a telephone call or even on a video conference, where the screen can actually work as a barrier to good communication. The payoff? Companies could save time and money on employee travel.
"We see VR as a communication service that goes way beyond the telephone, be it virtual shopping, virtual travel, virtual anything," Dr. Ganapathy says. "We think people would be willing to pay for services like these."
All this talk of exploring foreign worlds with the touch of a button shouldn't obscure the fact that VR is still locked in its own version of artificial reality. Despite all the hoopla surrounding VR, technological advances have been slow to develop and products have been slow to come to market. This is the result, say critics, of VR proselytizers who spend too much time pondering their virtual navels instead of looking for concrete ways to bring the technology into the real world.
And while VR may make for some nifty demonstrations in the lab, the technology remains prohibitively expensive and difficult to manage. In addition to their staggering price tags -- $1 million or more in some cases -- many VR systems require bulky headgear and suits to operate, parameters that wouldn't sit well with most commercial customers.
Then there's the question of whether the VR way of doing things is really better -- or just different. Though the promise of the technology is tantalizing, signs of a real payoff for customers remain elusive.
"It can be the coolest technology in the world, but if it doesn't help you get your business done more efficiently or more cost-effectively, it's not going to fly," says Christopher Allis, a marketing director at Autodesk Inc., a software developer in Sausalito, Calif.
Champions of the technology concede that VR has yet to prove itself in the commercial marketplace. But they say the long-term value of VR can be seen in existing applications.
The military, for example, has long used simulators -- a derivative of VR -- to train fighter pilots, Navy commanders and astronauts. New generations of simulators that use state-of-the-art VR techniques will impart an experience that is startlingly real, enhancing the educational process considerably.
Building on that same idea, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Ames Research Center in California has reconstructed the surface of Mars in one of its VR labs. Armchair visitors can don a special suit, goggles and gloves for a quick tour of the red planet, which comes complete with craters, eerie shadows and a clear view of Earth.
Anyone questioning the commercial appeal of VR need only look as far as their local toy store. Mattel Toys' Power Glove, a VR byproduct, tracks hand movements and functions as a virtual joystick with Nintendo gaming systems. The remote control feature generated more than $60 million in sales when it was introduced last Christmas, not bad for a first commercial effort.
The data-glove technology is the result of work by VPL Research Inc., of Redwood City, Calif. VPL sells a $100,000 outfit -- 'N head-mounted goggles, a spandex suit wired with sensors and similarly wired spandex gloves -- that gives wearers a sensory workout. The get-up is geared for pure entertainment at this point, but its creators believe other applications will evolve as the technology improves.
VPL is working with MCA/Universal to create a new-age theme park at Universal Studios that promises to make Disney's Tomorrowland pale by comparison: Instead of riding on cars through exhibits, visitors to the virtual playland will become part of shows in sensory-rich theaters filled with imaginary actors, settings and props.
The theme park will expand on an earlier project with Matsushita of Japan: a simulated house that visitors can wander through when they visit Matsushita's sales room in Tokyo. Visitors to the simulated room are invited to break a dish, put their head under a running faucet and tune the radio to an ongoing Sumo match. Wearing a VPL headset, they can design their own kitchens.
It's pretty heady stuff, to be sure. But the best and most creative uses of the technology probably haven't even been thought of. Indeed, as the technology creeps closer to reality, and new applications evolve, today's visions may wind up looking tame by comparison.
L And that may wind up being the most fantastic voyage of all.
"It's impossible to fully explain the ways the technology will wind up being used," muses Jaron Lanier, VPL's founder. "But sometimes a technology is so powerful that it changes the whole playing field. To the extent that's true of VR, it's changing the way people think."