Hands Anatomy

Hands Anatomy is an interactive learning tool for exploring the bony anatomy of the human hand. It was a group project with Ana Fahlböck in the Medical Visualization course (summer semester 2025). The central question: can real-time hand tracking and 3D visualization help students better understand hand structure?

After attempts to segment individual bones from CT scans in MeVisLab proved impractical for animation, we adapted an existing hand-bone model: meshes were split into vertex groups, rigged with an armature, exported as .glb, and driven in Three.js. MediaPipe Hands supplies 21 landmarks from the webcam; the wrist acts as the root, orientation and scale are estimated from landmark geometry, and bone directions follow landmark vectors so the 3D skeleton tracks your hand in real time.

The app starts with a high-five gesture once a hand is detected. Learners can select individual bones or bone groups (with English, Latin, and German labels), explore color-linked mnemonic aids for the carpals, and practice with a retrieval-based bone quiz. The live demo is at hands-anatomy.sebastianantes.at.