3D Slicer Workshop Recap!

Below is a recap of the recent 3D Slicer training workshop. 

If you are interested in attending a 3D Slicer workshop, the next one will be held as part of the Research Bazaar 2016 conference, a free 3-day intensive event (Feb 1-3rd 2016) for researchers at all stages in their careers (Honours, Masters, PhD, Post-Docs, ECRs and so on) to engage with the wider community and learn new digital research skills.

Simply follow the links below to sign up and select 3D Slicer as your first preference from the available teaching streams. This conference will be an amazing experience for all, and will include a great range of social activities, fun and games.

Have a question? Check out our FAQ: melbourne.resbaz.edu.au/resbaz2016. Apply at resbaz.com/melbourne.

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The 3rd ever 3D Slicer for Beginners workshop was held at Melbourne University last week. 15 enthusiastic participants, one lovely Helper, and a guest appearance from Objective 3D made this workshop both interesting and informative. This workshop the very recently released version 4.5 of 3D Slicer.

For me, this workshop was my most intimidating. The turnout was double that of the previous workshop I held in August, and triple that of my very first workshop in July. This increasing turnout shows increasing awareness and interest in this kind of software around Melbourne University and beyond.

Participants came from a range of academic backgrounds, including Anatomy and Neuroscience, Agriculture and Veterinary Sciences, Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanofabrication, Psychology, Physiotherapy, and even video game design.

Jasamine Coles-Black, an MD research student in vascular surgery at Austin Health, kindly volunteered to be a helper at my workshop, after having attended the previous two 3D Slicer workshops.

Ben Darling, the National Sales Manager for Objective 3D, kindly offered to bring along some 3D printed anatomical objects to show off some of the abilities of advanced 3D printers like the Connex 3, which offers multi-material printing, “from rubber to rigid, transparent to opaque, neutral to vibrantly colored and standard to biocompatible.”

For the majority of the workshop, participants were taught the steps required to generate 3D surface models of anatomical features from DICOM datasets such as MRI and CT scans, for 3D printing and visualisation purposes.

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Image: A 3D volume rendering of a brain that has been isolated from an MRI scan of a patients head. 

Feedback from the workshop was very positive. The below interactive graph displays the score out of 5 that participants (who filled out the end-of-workshop survey) gave for a number of different questions. 

The majority of participants felt that the material covered in the workshop was relevant to their research/interests, and many of them intend to continue using 3D Slicer in the future. 

If you have any questions or comments, don’t hesitate to contact me.  You can email me at louisevanderwerff@gmail.com and tweet me @LouWerff.