[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":152},["ShallowReactive",2],{"news-\u002Fnews\u002Fopentwin-xr":3},{"id":4,"title":5,"authors":6,"body":13,"coverAlt":130,"coverCaption":131,"coverCredit":132,"coverImage":133,"date":134,"description":135,"draft":136,"extension":137,"hero":138,"license":139,"meta":140,"metaDescription":141,"navigation":142,"path":143,"reading":144,"seo":145,"stem":146,"summary":147,"tags":148,"updated":141,"__hash__":151},"news\u002Fnews\u002Fopentwin-xr.md","How we build an open human body for our digital twin, in the browser",[7,10],{"name":8,"role":9},"Martin Etzrodt, PhD","Open Science Institute",{"name":11,"role":12},"Prof. Robin Wilkening","Open Health",{"type":14,"value":15,"toc":124},"minimark",[16,28,43,46,63,66,71,86,89,92,96,99,102,110],[17,18,19,20,27],"p",{},"When building a human digital twin, starting with an accurate anatomical\nrepresentation of the human body seems the first logical step. But what is\nalready out there? Are there any open models we can rely on? This is exactly\nwhat we embarked on in building\n",[21,22,26],"a",{"href":23,"rel":24},"https:\u002F\u002Fopentwin.opening.science\u002F",[25],"nofollow","OpenTwin XR",", an open-source 3D viewer of\nexisting models of the human body. The immersive viewer is built using WebXR\nand can also run directly in the browser without the need of installation.\nWhile the viewer itself is MIT licensed, the anatomical models retain the\nlicences and attribution requirements of their original sources.",[17,29,30,31,36,37,42],{},"We have identified a number of well documented anatomical datasets that could\nbe integrated and are now available for comparison. These include BodyParts3D\nfrom Japan's Database Center for Life Science, the Z-Anatomy atlas built by a\ncommunity around ",[21,32,35],{"href":33,"rel":34},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.linkedin.com\u002Fin\u002Fgauthier-kervyn\u002F",[25],"Gauthier Kervyn",",\nand the male and female reference anatomies from the\n",[21,38,41],{"href":39,"rel":40},"https:\u002F\u002Fportal.hubmapconsortium.org\u002F",[25],"HuBMAP"," Human Reference Atlas, an\nopen-source platform to discover standardized organ, cell type, gene, and\ntissue data across the human body. We also identified two datasets of bodies\nreconstructed from real CT scans. In all, several thousand individually\nselectable structures are now available, with the most detailed atlas\ncontaining 3,617 of them.",[17,44,45],{},"Our viewer allows switching between the integrated anatomical datasets. We also\ninclude specialised models the atlases do not provide, but that can be added\nwithin them: researchers created an animation of a biventricular heart across\n25 cardiac phases, fitted to cine MRI data, which can be embedded into any of\nthe models and replayed at different heart rates. We also found the data of a\nhuman temporal bone whose surface colours were derived from photographs of the\nsame specimen. The tissue therefore looks as it actually appeared, not as\nimagined or painted.",[47,48,49,50,49,59],"figure",{},"\n  ",[51,52],"img",{"src":53,"alt":54,"width":55,"height":56,"loading":57,"decoding":58},"\u002Fimages\u002Fnews\u002Fopentwin-xr\u002Fbeating-heart.jpg","Close-up of the viewer's control panel with the beating heart overlay enabled: a heart rate slider set to 60 bpm above a provenance note, next to a translucent upper body showing vessels and organs.",1400,1046,"lazy","async",[60,61,62],"figcaption",{},"The beating heart overlay: 25 measured cardiac phases from one study participant, with the provenance stated directly in the panel. The heart rate slider is a playback rate, not a measurement.",[17,64,65],{},"For our application two things were especially important.",[67,68,70],"h2",{"id":69},"_1-structures-know-what-they-are","1. Structures know what they are",[17,72,73,74,79,80,85],{},"A liver in our viewer is not simply a mesh named \"liver\". Instead it is matched\nwith an ontology identifier. In the\n",[21,75,78],{"href":76,"rel":77},"https:\u002F\u002Fobophenotype.github.io\u002Fuberon\u002F",[25],"Uberon"," Multi-Species Anatomy\nontology, liver maps to the identifier\n",[21,81,84],{"href":82,"rel":83},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.ebi.ac.uk\u002Fols4\u002Fontologies\u002Fuberon\u002Fclasses\u002Fhttp%253A%252F%252Fpurl.obolibrary.org%252Fobo%252FUBERON_0002107",[25],"UBERON:0002107",".\nIt also maps to FMA, another domain ontology that represents a coherent body of\nexplicit declarative knowledge about human anatomy. Using ontologies we can\nassign any body structure a machine-readable biological identity.",[17,87,88],{},"All 1,838 BodyParts3D structures now have an FMA identifier, and approximately\nhalf of the Z-Anatomy structures have already been mapped. For 457 structures,\nthe viewer can also provide the ontology's own definition of the selected\nanatomy.",[17,90,91],{},"This semantic layer is what will eventually allow the body viewer to connect\nreliably with real data. A name can change between models and languages; a\nstable identifier can survive an atlas swap.",[67,93,95],{"id":94},"_2-provide-documented-provenance","2. Provide documented provenance",[17,97,98],{},"Anatomical models often originate from donated bodies, medical imaging,\nphysical specimens or research participants. Their origins and conditions of\nuse therefore matter. As an organisation that aims to promote openness, we rely\non the very fact that others have provided us with open and accessible data. We\nwant to ensure that we attribute each work accordingly.",[17,100,101],{},"Each model in the viewer is listed with its licence to ensure documenting\nwhere the model came from, who created it, and under which terms it may be\nused. While the viewer code we generated is open source MIT licensed,\nindividual anatomical datasets remain governed by their respective licences.",[17,103,104,105,109],{},"We ultimately aim to overlay the anatomical features with spatial, possibly real-time medical data\nfrom wearables, as part of the wider ",[21,106,108],{"href":107},"\u002FOpenTwinLab\u002F","OpenTwin"," project. The\nanatomy viewer currently helps us map what open resources there are. It does\nnot claim to provide any medical insight or advice.",[17,111,112,113,118,119,123],{},"Code is available on\n",[21,114,117],{"href":115,"rel":116},"https:\u002F\u002Fgithub.com\u002FOpening-Science\u002Fopen-twin-xr\u002F",[25],"GitHub",". The\n",[21,120,122],{"href":23,"rel":121},[25],"viewer"," runs without local installation on\nthe browser. Issues and pull requests are welcome!",{"title":125,"searchDepth":126,"depth":126,"links":127},"",2,[128,129],{"id":69,"depth":126,"text":70},{"id":94,"depth":126,"text":95},"The OpenTwin XR viewer showing a male anatomical model from the combined atlas, abdomen view, with the dataset panel open.","OpenTwin XR: the male donor in the combined 'best per system' atlas, abdomen view.","Open Science Foundation","\u002Fimages\u002Fnews\u002Fopentwin-xr\u002Fviewer-overview.jpg","2026-08-19","When building a human digital twin, starting with an accurate anatomical\nrepresentation of the human body seems the first logical step. But what is\nalready out there? Are there any open models we can rely on? This is exactly\nwhat we embarked on in building\nOpenTwin XR, an open-source 3D viewer of\nexisting models of the human body. The immersive viewer is built using WebXR\nand can also run directly in the browser without the need of installation.\nWhile the viewer itself is MIT licensed, the anatomical models retain the\nlicences and attribution requirements of their original sources.",false,"md","dispatch","CC BY 4.0",{},null,true,"\u002Fnews\u002Fopentwin-xr","4 min",{"title":5,"description":135},"news\u002Fopentwin-xr","Every human digital twin needs a body. OpenTwin XR is our open-source, browser-based 3D viewer of human anatomy: several open atlases in one viewer, structures with machine-readable identities, and provenance treated as a feature.",[12,149,150],"Open Source","Digital Twin","4epZkhPr0T6fUdl--HC6ECFQLM8MWvL-WyN3jsgRV94",1788809659684]