Human Leg Muscles
You can look at the muscles in a human leg here. This requires the shockwave plugin and a 3d capable computer. It allows you to zoom in and out and spin the model. You can click on the various muscles to see what they are called. Another version with the insertion points and more technical detail will soon be available and a model with the groups of muscles is available below. This lets you show and hide various groups and is recommended if you are teaching. If you spin any of the models you are advised to turn on the light first. To reset the model press the F5 key on your keyboard.
Update: This file was made in 2005. The model was quite revolutionary back then. Now, however, we have hundreds of much better tools, mostly available as apps on tablets.
Anatomy Exploration Tool
An anatomy exploration tool for school children developed for digitalbrain is available here.
This is part of a project to put an interactive human anatomy model online for schools. When looking at it first find the light and turn it on! Buttons show and hide parts of the body or move it in a controlled way. You can also drag the model about in any direction with the mouse or use the arrow keys to move in and out or around. To reset press the F5 key.
The early versions are aimed at schools and people wishing to look at human anatomy in an interesting and interactive way. Although some nurses and trainee medical students have found the model useful they usually require a more detailed tool.
The version of the model here is about 1 Mb, or for more anatomy information and the model visit anatomy.digitalbrain.com. A slightly larger version (1.6 Mb) is here.
Besides being useful for science lessons this is also very useful for art lessons.
Leg Muscles
Quick but illustrative models and animations of the skeleton, main organs and main muscle groups are available here. Other models demonstrate the way organs or muscles work. These simple models are suitable for school children and many require the free Flash or Director Shockwave plugins. More advanced and accurate tools are available on request.
Some of this content is freely available. However, to access some of it you do need a username and password and some of it you will have to request personally.
Digitalbrain produce superlative content such as a skeleton explorer, muscle explorer and complete learning objects on the working of muscles for FE and HE sports science students.
This model illustrates the way muscles contract to move the leg bones. Although, as an early version it is quite good and is initially quite impressive it isn't entirely accurate and when you look carefully you do not need to be an anatomist to spot some of the bugs.
You can see a more realistic volley kick motion with just the skin and bones playing at about half speed in most web browsers, with the bones and muscles again at half speed and here with bones skin and muscles running about real speed.
The model was built, animated and rendered in 3ds Max and the motion is fairly accurate as it is based on three dimensional motion capture of a real kick (usually called mocap). The rendered images were then turned into a Flash movie. It is also possible to show the animated model on the web in a 3d package using suitable technology such as Wirefusion, Director or the like.