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Design

This Digital Mirror Displays Your Inner Self

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who has the fairest organs of them all?

When you look into Xavier Maître's magic, digital mirror,  you can see through your skin and see how you'd look if your internal workings were on display.

Maître, a University of Paris-South medical imaging researcher, fused his knowledge of modern bio-imaging with a Kinect camera to create a 3D digital mirror, which 'reflects' an interactive, real-time visualization of a person's internal structure. To create such an image, you must undergo an array of scans, including an MRI and an X-ray, to accurately map the bones and organ tissue. The scans are then integrated with the motion capture camera, which tracks your movement and puts the right bits and pieces where they belong. Voila! Instant, interactive insides in impressive hi-res reflective glory.

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The scans take, on average, three and a half hours, so Maître streamlined the process for the public. The camera recognizes the gender of a subject, then uses pre-scanned images to generate a convincing illusion of the person's own body. The bones and organs follow your movements, letting you examine your lungs and make awkward eye contact with your liver in real time.

By forcing us to interact with these unseen parts of us, Maître hopes to explore the relationship we have with our bodies. Maître also projects that a device similar to his mirror might be used in the future to help doctors interact with their patients.

In a study, about one third of the subjects that interacted with the mirror felt uncomfortable looking into their bodies, and didn't want others to see. We're certain that number would go up if the TSA ever got their hands on one of these.

Images via

h/t New Scientist