Chris Johnson
May 25, 2004
Chris Johnson, co-organizer (with Ross Whitaker) of the SIAM Conference on Imaging Science, under way in Salt Lake City, Utah, as this issue of SIAM News goes into the mail, was captured by a photographer for an article in MIT's Technology Review ("The Virtual Heart," March 2004). For the photographer, the scientist peeking through the blinds at nature represents the scientist who sees into the human body through imaging, visualization, and computational simulation. For Johnson, the interest lies in the model of the human thorax visible on the screen behind him; for a clearer view, see the photo below. Photo copyright by Lance W. Clayton.
Graphical representation of the geometry and electric current flow in the model of the human thorax blurrily visible behind Chris Johnson in this photograph. The computer model, Johnson explains, was created by segmenting MRI images of a patient. Shown here are segments of the body surface, the heart, and lungs. The loops are visualizations from a three-dimensional finite element simulation of the flow of electric current through the thorax for a single instant of time, computed from voltages recorded at the surface of the heart during open chest surgery. From the Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute at the University of Utah.
