BodyWorks In Your Browser

December 16, 2010 12:09 PM

A busy day for Google, as it soft-launches BodyBrowser (latest betas of Safari, Firefox and Chrome required.). Using a combination of HTML5 with the <canvas> tag with WebGL (essentially plugin-free OpenGL for 3D on the web), BodyBrowser makes the human body as accessible as a mapping application.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul (12 comments total)

That is so effin' cool.
posted by twsf at 12:15 PM on December 16, 2010 [2 favorites]

This kind of stuff makes my computer melt my lap.
posted by arveale at 12:17 PM on December 16, 2010

Haven't yet clicked, but is it TSA compatible?
posted by yeloson at 12:23 PM on December 16, 2010 [2 favorites]

Hmm, do I want to switch to Beta Chrome for my one and only browser? Looks like you can't have both release and beta installed together...
posted by Perplexity at 12:55 PM on December 16, 2010

makes the human body as accessible as a mapping application.

Not really. You can spin the female model on Y axis, zoom in and out somewhat, and show various layers, with some labeling. Make the body model open source with articulation points, and put in a search along with suggestions where you're most likely to be ticklish at, and then I'll consider it.
posted by Old'n'Busted at 1:02 PM on December 16, 2010

Hmm, do I want to switch to Beta Chrome for my one and only browser? Looks like you can't have both release and beta installed together...

Chrome Canary is what you're looking for.
posted by jessssse at 1:17 PM on December 16, 2010

YouTube link for those who want to see what it looks like without installing chrome.
posted by Kabanos at 1:18 PM on December 16, 2010 [2 favorites]

This is very nice. I hope they make it better but even as-is, it's good. Thanks, Google!
posted by chairface at 3:34 PM on December 16, 2010

Wow, this actually looks really useful. I do bodywork, this will be really nice to email clients images or let them explore on their own when I'm talking about specific muscle issues.

A lot of the problem is that nothing really lies flat on a 2D plane, making it hard to visualize for a lot of folks, when people can see how many muscles spiral, it's easier to go, "And that's why THIS is happening".
posted by yeloson at 4:12 PM on December 16, 2010

please add male, female, girl, boy, gorilla, dog, chicken, ... and the option to compare
posted by Akeem at 3:54 AM on December 17, 2010

Wow, this is the first time I come across WebGL. I'm impressed.
posted by joedan at 12:03 PM on December 17, 2010

If you don't want to switch to a beta browser for your one and only browser, use one of the others.

I installed the Firefox beta specifically so I could run Body Browser, my usual browser is Chrome.
posted by Mokusatsu at 11:02 PM on December 22, 2010