Patent ID: 7236817

Claim:
A method of producing 3-dimensional visualisations of digital representations of cross-sectional slices of a vertebrate animal or human body part includes the steps of: a) obtaining a first ordered series of slices of a portion of said body part in a first position; b) applying one or more filters to each of said digital representations of said first ordered series of slices to identify the skeletal portions of said body part; c) converting said first filtered series into a 3-dimensional representation of the skeleton of said body part in said first position; d) obtaining a second ordered series of slices of said portion of said body part in a second position different to said first position wherein said first and said second position of said portion of said body part is representative of extremes of the achievable movement of said portion of said body part; e) applying one or more filters to each of said digital representations of said second ordered series of slices to identify the skeletal portions of said body part; f) converting said second filtered series into a 3-dimensional representation of the skeleton of said body part in said second position; g) combining said 3-dimensional representations to form a step frame animation having as many steps as there are ordered series of slices.