Thursday, May 26th, 2022 Posted by Jim Thacker

Check out amazing free 3D anatomy reference Z-Anatomy


3D artists aiming to create more realistic human characters can now check out Z-Anatomy, a new “open source atlas of anatomy”.

The 3D reconstruction of the human body, available as both a Blender file and a free Android app, shows the major structures of the human body in layers, including the skeleton, muscles, blood vessels and nerves.

View the key parts of the human body as a layered, searchable 3D model
Z-Anatomy presents the human body as a Russian Doll-style 3D model, with its major anatomical systems – the skeleton, muscles, vascular and nervous systems, and internal organs – displayed on layers.

As well as toggling individual layers on or off, or hiding or isolating individual body parts, users can view the human body in cross section to see how individual parts fit around one another.

The asset is labelled according to the Terminologia Anatomica international standard, making it possible to find body parts by searching for their names.

Based on the open-source BodyParts3D data set
The project was initiated in 2021 by medical illustrator Gauthier Kervyn, based on the open-source BodyParts3D data set created by Japanese research institution the Database Center for Life Science.

Z-Anatomy organises the 3D models into a more user-friendly and visually appealing format, including a downloadable Blender file – it uses custom hotkeys to display the content – and an Android app.

A group of universities in The Netherlands has now secured a grant to further extend the content – which currently does not include the lymphatic system – with work due to begin in September 2022.

The Z-Anatomy team is also calling for volunteers to act as 3D modelers, developers or translators.

System requirements and licensing
Z-Anatomy is available for Blender on Windows and macOS via a Creative Commons CC BY-SA 4.0 licence, and as a free Android apps for Android 7-10 and Android 11+.

iOS and Windows apps are “coming soon”.

Download free 3D human anatomical reference asset Z-Anatomy