Models in science

Associate Professor Rod Dunbar (University of Auckland) discusses the importance of 3D models, such as Hayley Reynolds’ model of melanoma spread patterns, in medical and biological science.

Transcript

DR ROD DUNBAR When we say a three-dimensional model, what we’re talking about is taking shapes that exist in the real world and basically generating the same shape inside the computer and watching that shape move around in three-dimensional space. And in medicine, we need to do that a lot, because if we want to record data from the body and look at how it actually looks in three dimensions and be able to see it from different perspectives, we need to have a three-dimensional model that we can put that data on. A lot of things that are going on in the human body are happening in three dimensions, and if we just look at them as flat images such as in an X-ray – a straight X-ray – you can see one perspective but you can miss detail. You need to see things from multiple different angles to be able to see how it works.