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Published on Leave a comment on VR Headsets Available for 3-Day Loan!
Picture of Virtual Reality Headsets.

We have exciting news - Himmelfarb Library recently extended the loan period for our VR headsets to 3 days! The new 3-day loan period allows you to check out the headsets for long enough to take them home and explore our MedicalHolodeck virtual anatomy app and our healthy living apps from the comfort of your own home!

VR Headset Demos

Using virtual reality headsets can seem awkward and perhaps a bit intimidating if you’ve never used them before. If you want to test drive a VR headset with Himmelfarb’s resident VR expert before checking out a headset, we’ve got the perfect event for you! Our monthly VR Headset Demo sessions are the ideal opportunity to do just that. These monthly demos typically occur on the fourth Wednesday of each month. Due to the Winter Beak, we’ve moved the December VR Headset Demo to Wednesday, December 17, 2025, from 2 pm to 4 pm. You’ll find the demo on the first floor near the Circulation Desk.

Virtual Anatomy: MedicalHolodeck

Our headsets come pre-loaded with MedicalHolodeck, a VR-based virtual anatomy program designed for health education. MedicalHolodeck can be used individually or by multiple users simultaneously in the Cloud XR virtual room. This app includes: 

  • Anatomy Master XR: Features three-dimensional anatomy models of the human body, with over 2,000 carefully modeled, textured, and labelled structures.
  • Dissection Master XR: A dissection and anatomy lab that uses high-resolution human dissections with multiple digitized layers.
  • Medical Imaging XR: A system for rendering and manipulating objects based on medical imaging (MRI, CT, etc.) that are used in hospitals for 3D surgical planning, for radiology case reports, and surgery training.

Healthy Living Apps

December can be a hectic month for many people. From wrapping up class projects and taking final exams to beginning preparations for the coming holiday season, it can be a stressful time of year. Our VR headsets also come loaded with healthy living apps, designed to help you meditate, alleviate anxiety, and generally relax. 

  • Guided Meditation VR: Detach and re-center with guided or unguided meditative sessions, complete with calming music and ambient noises from over 40 digitally-generated environments.
  • Nature Treks VR: Choose from nine different natural environments (including forests, beaches, and outer space), and explore. You can control the weather and time of day, summon animals, and shape the virtual world around you. 
  • National Geographic Explore VR: Explore Machu Picchu and Antarctica, experience the landscape, and take photographs. While noises generated by this app are gentle and soothing, they are audible outside of the Oculus headset.

Checking Out Headsets

Checking out headsets is easy! Just stop by the Himmelfarb Circulation Desk on the first floor and let our staff know you’d like to check out a VR headset! Just have your physical or digital GW identification handy, and the VR headset will be yours to enjoy for 3 days!

Published on

When most people think of a library, the first thing that comes to mind is books. But there’s more to Himmelfarb Library than just books, journals, databases, and research help. Himmelfarb has some exciting technology resources, including free 3D printing, Virtual Reality (VR) headsets, and a variety of anatomy resources like BodyViz, Primal Pictures Real Time Functional Anatomy, and our anatomy models.

3D Printing

Himmelfarb offers free 3D printing to all faculty, staff, and students of the School of Medicine and Health Sciences, the Milken Institute School of Public Health, the School of Nursing, and the MFA. 

Picture of 3D printed objects including a bust of George Washington, a skull, and a heart.

From custom prosthetics and implants to pharmaceutical research in drug dosage and delivery, 3D printing has numerous uses in the medical field. For students, 3D printing can be a fantastic learning tool. Students often use Himmelfarb’s 3D printers to print complex anatomical and molecular models. There are endless use cases for 3D printing in medical education, including heart and hand bone models, and negative space molds similar to the one used to create this silicone model of a human heart: 

Picture of a 3D silicone heart made from a 3D printed mold.

3D printing at Himmelfarb is as easy as completing a submission form! You’ll need an STL file (a blueprint of the print job) of the model you’d like to print. You can find high-quality, free 3D printing libraries online. Some great options include NIH 3D, Thingiverse, or Zortrax Library. If you have questions about 3D printing, contact Randy Plym (randy.plym@gwu.edu) or Catherine Sluder (crharris@gwu.edu). 

VR Headsets

Picture of virtual reality headsets and hand controls.

Our VR headsets come preloaded with the Medicalholodeck Medical VR platform, which includes Anatomy Master XR, Medical Imaging XR, and Dissection Master XR. Medicalholodeck is part cadaver lab and part textbook. You can explore high-resolution dissections layer-by-layer. The video demonstration below gives you an idea of what you’ll experience with Medicalholodeck:

VR headsets also have apps that can help you relax and relieve stress. Check out the guided meditation, nature treks, and National Geographic Explore VR apps on the headsets to take a break from the stress of life and recharge.

Want to give the VR headsets a try? Join us for our monthly VR headset demos, held on the last Wednesday of every month. Our next demo is on August 27, 2025, from 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm on the first floor near the New Books shelf and the Circulation Desk.

BodyViz

Like Medicalholodeck, BodyViz is an interactive anatomy visualization tool that lets you view, study, and manipulate 3D anatomical structures. You can zoom in or out and rotate anatomical models to view them from different angles. You can also change the brightness, contrast, and color based on tissue density to highlight or filter out bone, muscles, organs, or vasculature. The BodyViz slicing software lets you digitally dissect models with precision, allowing for detailed inspection of the model. Preloaded with more than 1,000 datasets of human and animal models in healthy and pathological states, and different developmental stages, BodyViz is an amazing tool to help you take your anatomy knowledge to the next level!

BodyViz is available in the Levine Lounge (Himmelfarb 305A), adjacent to the Bloedorn Technology Center on Himmelfarb’s third floor. BodyViz materials are available for checkout at the circulation desk.

Primal Pictures Real Time Functional Anatomy

Have you ever wondered what your muscles are doing when you run, kick, or climb? Primal Pictures Real Time Functional Anatomy is a powerful 3D tool that lets you visualize and manipulate core functional movements in real-time, with 360-degree control to explore the human body at every angle! This resource includes detailed 3D graphic renderings of human anatomy. Gallery views feature musculoskeletal systems and layered neurovascular supply, functional animations with detailed descriptions of kinesiology, and goniometry animations with detailed descriptions of the goniometry technique. 

Screenshot of Primal Pictures software with skeleton and shoulder muscle highlights.

Primal Pictures also includes more than 80 preset and editable views that align to movements to help visualize whole-body systems and explore musculature and neurovasculature. You can interact with figures by dissecting, hiding, and ghosting structures. You can use the edit tools to label, draw, and pin 3D models.

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