Domenic Eggbeer, a PhD student at the National Center for Product Design & Development Research in UK, hopes to apply the technology of rapid prototyping to improve the quality of prosthetics and to slash production times.
Mass production techniques have transformed the world and made advanced technology cheaply available in all kinds of areas. Rapid prototyping (aka 3D printing) could make these techniques available areas mass production won’t reach.
That’s important because economies of scale mean that some areas of life haven’t benefited from technology as much as they could. If demand is small, it’s simply too expensive, and just not worth it to mass produce. Assistive technologies that can improve the quality of life of disabled people, for example, are not a big enough market for mass production. But rapid prototyping could change all that.
“Today’s techniques have pretty much remained unchanged for forty years,” he told me. Skilled artists work with wax to sculpt a prosthesis, which is then used as a mould to make a finished piece of silicone. Skin texture is one of the most important features needed to make a prosthesis look realistic – it’s added to the wax using toothbrushes, orange peel or gauze. But the whole process takes 2-3 days with the patient having to be present for much of it.
Eggbeer has been testing a rapid prototyping machine for printing realistic skin instead. A close-up photo of their skin, or an imprint of it, can be used to instruct a 3D printer to produce the same texture in wax over a large area. The photo above shows some of the results.
Eggbeer’s goal is to use a few photos and perhaps 3D scans of the patient to quickly make a near-complete wax model of a prosthetic. “Instead of them sitting there for a whole day, they would only need come in for a final fitting, and adjustments,” he says.
Full article at the New Scientist Blog . . .