The heart is a three‐dimensional structure that performs its function by undergoing complex deformation. Current clinical evaluation of the heart is limited to silhouettes, outlines, projections, or tomograms, obligating the clinician or investigator to sequentially evaluate a series of two‐dimensional images using mental assimulation of data. To provide more easily understandable three‐dimensional images, techniques have been developed for acquiring data in sequential planes through the heart to display the beating heart in three dimensions. Analysis of such data on a user‐friendly workstation can be accomplished using an extensive set of software tools developed at our institution. Three‐dimensional imaging can be used as an effective means of teaching interrelationships of volume, contents, and function, in addition to the physiologic and anatomic interrelation‐ships. Three‐dimensional images of the beating human heart obtainedin vivousing new data acquisition techniques will be shown. Evaluation of the method using balloons and excised hearts has shown that software and geometry of scanning are appropriate for high‐accuracy measurements of surfaces.