Affiliations: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA | VT-WFU School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences,
Blacksburg, VA, USA | Department of Computer Science, Virginia Tech,
Blacksburg, VA, USA
Note: [] Corresponding author: Sourav Mishra, Department of Electrical
and Computer Engineering, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA. E-mail:
sourav@vt.edu
Abstract: Training on micro- and nano- computed tomography (CT) scanners has
been traditionally conducted via extensive practice on the instrument. This
entails presence of an instructor to guide through the training procedure,
until reasonable experience is attained. Modern tomographic instruments being
expensive to maintain, the operational costs escalates with increasing number
of training conducted. In a pioneering approach, the technical know-how to
operate such equipment has been partly imparted via virtual reality environment
running on the Second Life grid. The experimentation has indicated a reduction
of the total training time. The authors hope that in the long run, such
techniques will aid in significant reduction of instruction time and costs
associated with training.
Keywords: Virtual world, micro-CT, nano-CT, simulation, Second Life, CT (computed tomography), training
