A Hospital in Another World?-Chapter 736: Let’s Do a Magic CT... What? Change the Algorithm? (3/3)

Chapter 736: Let’s Do a Magic CT... What? Change the Algorithm? (3/3)

Performing a CT on someone was something Garrett had done once before.

That was back on the Black Gate Peninsula, near the Wastelands. A barbarian nicknamed "Old Hunchback" had swallowed a spoon, and to determine whether the spoon handle had pierced a blood vessel, Garrett had no choice but to conduct a very crude CT scan.

That instance was heart-wrenching for anyone who witnessed it. Old Hunchback had him tied to a chair, forbidding any movement, mounted on a floating disc that slowly rotated. For each angle of rotation, Garrett manually recorded a batch of data, then rotated another angle and recorded another batch.

When the data recording was finally completed, it had taken a full two hours. Poor Old Hunchback’s bladder was on the verge of bursting, and Garrett had to manually assist him.

Getting a mouse to stay still for two hours in a natural state was clearly impossible. Garrett dragged a chair to sit next to the central hub of the Mage Tower, contemplating the mouse:

How to make it stay still? Tie it up? Use a 2% sodium pentobarbital solution for intravenous injection? Or a 10% chloral hydrate solution for intraperitoneal injection?

Forget it, no anesthetics were available, none of these options were possible...

Garrett first tried using vines to tie the mouse up and suspend it in mid-air. Without needing to activate [Detection Magic], he could see with the naked eye the mouse struggling desperately within the vines, its four little paws scratching incessantly.

This definitely wouldn’t work. Without standing still, it wouldn’t even be possible to take an X-ray, let alone a CT scan.

Hmm... maybe immobilize the mouse?

Garrett tentatively cast a [Peace Spell]. Great, the mouse indeed stopped moving. Then he cast [Detection Magic]—

Perfect!

The skeletal shadows under the [Detection Magic] were clearly visible, just like an X-ray!

He instructed an invisible servant to bring a frame, hung the mouse upside down with its tail up and head down, positioned it in the center of the floating disc, and gave the order:

"MOSS, have the invisible servant rotate this floating disc as slowly as possible! Hmm, one degree per second, six minutes per revolution, maintain a steady rotation!"

"No problem, boss!"

The Tower Spirit’s voice was flat. Of course, MOSS’s factory settings were like this. Even though it had learned to joke, retort, and even insult him, it had never learned to fluctuate its tone. Garrett didn’t mind and pulled out the golden treasure box:

"MOSS, connect this box to the central hub of the Mage Tower."

"Okay, boss."

"Save all the images I perceive. Hmm, can you save them every 0.1 seconds? Is the image resolution high enough to see objects as small as 0.5 millimeters?"

"No problem, boss."

MOSS’s voice remained unwavering. Garrett took a deep breath, fixed the oak staff opposite him, and activated [Detection Magic]:

"Three, two, one, start!"

In the meditative world, an image akin to an X-ray film lit up, then flowed through the golden treasure box into the central hub of the Mage Tower, where it was silently stored.

Garrett sighed inwardly. Once upon a time, when he first arrived in this world, he could only attempt to take an X-ray; over the years, accumulating enough resources, he could now attempt a CT scan: ṘÂ𝐍ÒꞖΕS̩

Without the golden treasure box to convert meditative images into real ones, purely relying on hand drawing would exhaust him to the point of collapse;

Without the technology to connect the golden treasure box to the central hub of the Mage Tower, relying solely on chips, accumulating resources would bankrupt him;

Without the Mage Tower to store data and the Tower Spirit to calculate, if he had to do it all himself, he would certainly calculate himself to death...

And now, one rotation was completed, then another. After three rotations, enough data was accumulated. The mouse was released from the spell and placed in a corner, pacified with a calming spell, allowing it to eat and drink on its own. Garrett hugged his notebook and sat next to the central hub of the Mage Tower:

"MOSS, bring up an image, just one."

A front-view X-ray of the mouse was projected on the wall. Garrett pointed to the X-ray and explained to MOSS:

"MOSS, how many levels of brightness can you distinguish from white to black? Can you divide them evenly?"

"Boss, how to divide evenly?"

Garrett smacked his forehead with a crisp slap. Although MOSS could chat with him and help with tasks, its essence was artificial intelligence!

The characteristic of artificial intelligence is, if it doesn’t know something, it just doesn’t know, even if it can self-learn, you still have to teach it first...

So, how should this brightness be defined?

He laboriously reviewed high school physics, then college physics, then "Medical Physics." Combining some miscellaneous fragmentary knowledge, he finally deduced a method:

"MOSS, find a non-reflective wall—preferably a white one. In the dark, define this brightness as 0, then use the brightest white light you can achieve to illuminate it, defining that brightness as 255."

The display of the Mage Tower central hub flashed, then flashed again, emitting a white light, then went completely dark. Then, in the white light, the number 255 was displayed. The screen went dark again, and the number 0 appeared on the black screen.

Alright... this works too. Garrett continued giving orders:

"Reduce this brightest white light by half brightness... or half energy, and illuminate the wall again. The resulting color will be half the brightness. Divide them evenly by halves, and so on. Got it?"

The display screen flickered rapidly. Garrett almost thought he heard the sound of the hard drive "creaking." Soon, a block appeared on the display screen:

Sixteen rows, sixteen... probably sixteen columns. Garrett looked at it for a long time but couldn’t figure out how many vertical lines were in a horizontal row...

He belatedly remembered a sad fact: the human eye has its limits. Humans can only distinguish 16 levels of grayscale...

"MOSS, can you distinguish these brightness levels?"

"Yes, boss."

"Can you distinguish these brightness levels in the images you recorded?"

"Yes, boss."

Thank goodness... Garrett breathed a sigh of relief. The information received in the meditative vision and the human eye are different. Although the eyes couldn’t distinguish, the golden treasure box faithfully translated the information, recorded by the central hub of the Mage Tower.

Being able to distinguish meant creating a high-resolution CT image was possible!

Garrett continued giving orders:

"Alright, MOSS, cut the images you recorded into 0.5mm by 0.5mm grids, then mark the brightness of each grid with a number."

This time, the Tower Spirit’s silence lasted even longer, so long that Garrett almost thought the Tower Spirit was broken... or stuck. Sigh, even some noise would be good, like the hum of a hard drive or the whir of a fan...

Too much thinking, this is the central hub of the Mage Tower, without these sounds. Having MOSS simulate them wasn’t impossible, but during full computation, to add some sound effects to let him know it was working hard?

It would drag down the computing power, why bother.

Garrett poured himself a cup of tea, slowly sipping it. He drank tea, ate cookies, and after finishing two cups of tea and a plate of cookies, he finally heard MOSS’s voice:

"Boss, it’s done."

"…Great. Then, MOSS, take this image..."

He waved his hand lightly. In the void, [Silent Illusion] pulled out a cube with the cross-section divided into numerous squares. Then, the vertical image was expanded 360 degrees from the central axis of the cross-section:

"Label the data of each point on each image. Sum the data of each point, find the average, and restore it to the image according to the corresponding brightness. Finally, stack them one by one to create a three-dimensional image. Can you do it?"

"Yes, boss. It will take time, boss."

"Alright, leave it to you."

MOSS silently began the calculations. Garrett rolled up his sleeves and started his part of the work:

Dissecting the mouse.

According to the fixed procedure, grasp the tail with the right hand, lift it; press the mouse’s head and neck with the left thumb and forefinger, press down; grab the tail root with the right hand, wrap the tail around the fingers, one, two, three, pull hard!

Crack!

Perfect, a clean and neat execution. My skill in mouse experiments hasn’t been forgotten after all!

Garrett gave himself a thumbs-up and began the dissection. Following the previous surgical route, he cut open the skin, the muscle tissue, exposing the ribs. He removed the wires from the ribs and the spinous processes...

Lifting the mouse, he took frontal and lateral views with [Detection Magic]. The spinal curvature hadn’t significantly changed, indicating the curvature was structural and had fully developed. Alright, remove the spine and start examining the pathological changes!

Garrett made a cut at the cervical spine, another between the lumbar and tail vertebrae. He cut through the ribs and removed the spine.

Looking at it, the spine curved laterally around the apex vertebra in the coronal plane, protruded anteriorly in the sagittal plane, and rotated along the longitudinal axis. Clearly, it formed a three-dimensional S-shape.

"MOSS! Record the shape of this spine!"

Darn, MOSS didn’t respond, MOSS was stuck... was there too much to calculate and it hadn’t figured it out yet?

Gar

rett gently touched the vertebrae, trying to remember the deformities clearly. This is what you have to deal with, this is what you will treat in the future.

Understand its condition, understand all its changes, and do not let the sacrifice of these experimental animals go in vain!

Garrett picked up the scalpel again, continuing the meticulous dissection. Removing the muscles beside the vertebrae, he immediately saw the concave side’s growth plate thinning, cortical bone and trabeculae thickening. The convex side, correspondingly, thinned and narrowed, showing significant organic changes.

Hmm...

If this were on a human, how should it be corrected?

[Magician’s Trick]!

Garrett molded an object of the same shape and rough material, then adjusted it bit by bit. Cut, fill, cut, fill, fragments flew, and the S-shaped twisted spine gradually straightened.

"Alright... now let’s see how to fix it without damaging the spinal cord and nerves..."

To avoid harming these, CT is the most basic. Ideally, MRI should be used, but MRI...

He still didn’t know how to create it...

Garrett straightened up, stretching his back. Finally done, any longer and he felt like his own intervertebral discs would herniate:

"MOSS, is it done?"

"Almost... done... boss..." MOSS’s voice was choppy, seemingly still struggling with calculations:

"Boss... give... me... some... time..."

This speed won’t do! An hour had passed since he finished his research, and the three-dimensional reconstruction report wasn’t out yet!

In his previous life, a chest scan report could be done in 15 minutes in an emergency. The mouse’s volume is much smaller than a human chest, and it still wasn’t done?

Garrett cleaned up, drank a glass of milk, and had two cookies as a midnight snack. When he looked back, MOSS finally projected a three-dimensional image in front of him. Garrett took one look and frowned tightly:

Tsk, this still won’t do!

Too blurry, the organ edges and bone edges were unclear!

The speed was slow, and the image was blurry; this magic CT algorithm needed to be iterated!

It must be iterated severely!

Sigh, he really couldn’t write algorithms... Tomorrow he would ask Mrs. Alva if there was a mage good at training artificial intelligence.