Augmented Reality Simulation of Cardiac Circulation Using APPLearn (Heart)

Cardiac circulation is traditionally difficult for students from both high school and colleges to learn biology due its complexity and dynamic process. Cadavers can be used as a good tool for students to learn cardiovascular system. Unfortunately, this approach comes with some major concerns because of the collapsed anatomic structures, and no blood flowing. Also cadavers are normally available only in medical schools. Human subjects especially cardiac patients are ideal for students to learn human circulation from the perspectives of both structures and functions. This, however, is infeasible due to ethical and other constraints. As such most students learn cardiac circulation by reading text books, attending to lectures, viewing images and perhaps manipulating heart models. In this paper, we will present our efforts developing augmented reality (AR) technology to enhance learning of cardiac circulation. More specifically, a book based AR app APPLearn (Heart) is designed to allow each and every student learning the cardiac structure and function by interactive playing.