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3D Printing in Medicine

A blog by Dr. Mike in General

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Musings about biomedical 3D printing

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How to Share, Sell, Organize, and Reprocess Automatically Generated 3D Printable Medical STL Models on Embodi3D

In this tutorial we will discuss how to share, sell, organize, and reprocess 3D printable medical models you make using the free online Imag3D service from embodi3D. Imag3D is a powerful tool that automatically converts a medical CT scan into a 3D printable file in minutes with minimal user input. It is no longer necessary to master complicated desktop software and spend hours manually segmenting to create a 3D printable model. Learn how to make high quality medical 3D models with Imag3D by foll

October 11, 2016

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How to Convert Multiple 3D Printable Bone Model STL Files from a CT Scan

In this tutorial you will learn how to create multiple 3D printable bone models simultaneously using the free online CT scan to bone STL converter, Imag3D. We will use the free desktop program Slicer to convert our CT scan in DICOM format to NRRD format. We will also make a small section of the CT scan into its own NRRD file to create a second stand-alone model. The NRRD files will then be uploaded to the free Imag3D online service to be converted into 3D printable STL models. If you

October 11, 2016

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A Ridiculously Easy Way to Convert CT Scans to 3D Printable Bone STL Models for Free in Minutes

In this tutorial you will learn how to quickly and easily make 3D printable bone models from medical CT scans using the free online service Imag3D. The method described here requires no prior knowledge of medical imaging or 3D printing software. Creation of your first model can be completed in as little as 10 minutes. You can download the files used in this tutorial by clicking on this link. You must have a free Embodi3D member account to do so. If you don't have an account, registra

October 3, 2016

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How to create an NRRD file from a DICOM Medical Imaging Data Set

NRRD is a file format for storing and visualizing medical image data. Its main benefit over DICOM, the standard file format for medical imaging, is that NRRD files are anonymized and contain no sensitive patient information. Furthermore NRRD files can store a medical scan in a single file, whereas DICOM data sets are usually comprised of a directory or directories that contain dozens if not hundreds of individual files. NRRD is thus a good file for transferring medical scan data while protecting

September 8, 2016

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3D Printing a Spine Model to Help a Fellow Doctor with Low Back Pain

I was recently contacted by another doctor who asked if I could help him to create a 3D printed replicate of his spine to visualize pinched nerves in his low back and aid with planning a future back surgery. In order to work this doctor has to stand for long hours while performing surgical procedures. Excruciating low back pain had limited his ability to stand to only 30 minutes. As you can imagine, this means he couldn't work. Things only got worse after he had low back surgery. A C

May 31, 2016

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Formlabs Form 2 3D Printer Review: A Great Buy for Medical 3D Printing

Hello Dr. Mike here and welcome to my review of the Form 2 3D printer by Formlabs. The Form 2 is Formlabs newest desktop stereolithography printer. It is a great asset for medical 3D printing with many user friendly features and an acceptable price. My full review is included here in both video and text. You can download the splenic artery aneurysm file shown in the video. The Form 2 printer is available to purchase from the Formlabs website. The previous generation Form 1+ can be purchased

May 26, 2016

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How to Upload and Share 3D Printable Files on Embodi3D

If you have a 3D printable file you would like to share with the Embodi3D community the process is very easy. 1) First, get your files ready. STL files are best and have good compatibility with most printers. Make sure your files are of good quality as Embodi3D's file library contains high quality files. If you think you files may have errors in them, you can check them using the Inspector function in MeshMixer. Be sure to compress your files if possible using a compression program like WinZ

May 16, 2016

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Free and Open-Source 3D Printing Software at RSNA 2015

If you attended my open-source 3D printing didactic talk or open-source 3D printing workshop at this year's RSNA meeting and are interested in a having a copy of my slides (I have been asked several times), or if you are not at the meeting and are just interested, you can find them here. They are an attached PDFs and links. Manual for Open-Source 3D printing workshop (PDF) Other resources to help you get 3D Printing the Embodi3D tutorials page: http://www.embodi3d.com/tut

November 29, 2015

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Medical 3D Model Creation: From CT Scan to 3D Printable STL File in 20 Minutes Using Free Software Programs 3D Slicer, Blender, and Meshmixer

UPDATED TUTORIAL: A Ridiculously Easily Way to Convert CT Scans to 3D Printable Bone STL Models for Free in Minutes Hello, it's Dr. Mike here again with another tutorial on 3D printing. Proprietary software that creates 3D printable models from medical scans typically costs tens of thousands of dollars to license. But, did you know that you can do the same thing using freeware? It's true! In this tutorial I'm going to show you exactly how to do this. We will be using the free,

October 10, 2015

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Creating a 3D Printable Skull from a CT Scan in 5 Minutes using Freeware.

UPDATED TUTORIAL: A Ridiculously Easily Way to Convert CT Scans to 3D Printable Bone STL Models for Free in Minutes Hello and welcome back. I hope you enjoyed my last tutorial on creating 3D printable medical models using free software on Macintosh computers. In this brief video tutorial I'll show you how to create a 3D printable skull STL file from a CT scan in FIVE minutes using only free and open source software. In the video I use a program called 3D Slicer, which is available fr

September 28, 2015

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How to Create 3D Printable Models from Medical Scans in 30 Minutes Using Free Software: Osirix, Blender, and Meshmixer

UPDATED TUTORIAL: A Ridiculously Easily Way to Convert CT Scans to 3D Printable Bone STL Models for Free in Minutes Hello, it's Dr. Mike here again with another tutorial and video on medical 3D printing. In this tutorial we're going to learn how to take a DICOM-based medical imaging scan, such as a CT scan, and convert into an STL file in preparation for 3D printing. We will use the free, open-source software program Osirix to do this. Once the file is converted into STL format, we w

July 18, 2015

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Choosing the Best Medical Imaging Scan to Create a 3D Printed Medical Model

Hello, it's Dr. Mike here again with another tutorial on medical 3D printing. In this tutorial we are going to learn what types of medical imaging scans can be used for 3D printing. We will also explore the characteristics those scans must have to ensure a high quality 3D print. This is one of a series of 3D printing tutorials that will teach you how to create 3D printed anatomical and medical models yourself. Open source and commercial software are covered in the tutorials along with 3D printer

July 16, 2015

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Saving a Spleen with 3D Printing: Pre-Surgical Planning with Medical Models make "Impossible" Surgeries Possible.

Summary: 3D printing is making rapid advances in many areas of medical treatment. In this article, I'll describe how I used recent advances in 3D printing to save a patient from having to have her spleen removed. In the process I broke some new ground in use of 3D printing in surgical planning. The clinical case and 3D printing advances are described in a recently published peer-reviewed paper in the medical journal Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology. Intro image: The author usi

June 9, 2015

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Spine STL files from CT Scans for 3D printing cervical, lumbar, thoracic vertebrae for medical modeling - Download Free Collection

I have received several requests for spine STL files from CT scans and these files have been added to the file vault over time as more people are 3D printing vertebrae for medical moldeling. There was a really good response to my last article about the wonderful 3D printable skull models available for free download on the embodi3D.com website. So, I've decided to do another article about spine models. The spine is a very complicated anatomic structure. Some spinal bones, or vertebrae, are d

May 25, 2015

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A Collection of Free Skull Medical Model STL Files from CT Scans - Ready for 3D Printing

A lot of great 3D printable anatomic files have been shared on Embodi3D in the past few months. One of the most popular categories is skulls. There are many files available, but they are scattered throughout the File Vault. I'm creating this list of my favorite skull files for your learning and enjoyment. These 3D printable models are a fantastic resource for education and show both normal anatomy and disease and injury. Thanks to the generosity of our contributors, all of these models are

May 2, 2015

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3D Printing of Bones from CT Scans: A Tutorial on Quickly Correcting Extensive Mesh Errors using Blender and MeshMixer

Hello and welcome back. Once again, I am Dr. Mike, board-certified radiologist and 3D printing enthusiast. Today I'm going to show you how to correct severe mesh defects in a bone model generated from a CT scan. This will be in preparation for 3D printing. I'll be using the free software programs Blender and Meshmixer. In my last medical 3d printing video tutorial, I showed you how to remove extraneous mesh within the medullary cavity of a bone. That technique is best used when mesh defects

March 4, 2015

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Preparing CT scans for 3D printing. Cleaning and repairing STL file mesh from bones using Blender, an advanced tutorial

Summary: This is an advanced tutorial and assumes that you already know how to create STL files from CT scans. If you do not yet know how to do this, stay tuned, as a series of tutorials is planned on this website. Here we will use a free, open-source software package Blender to repair and correct a bony pelvis and lumbar spine model generated from a CT scan. If you would like to follow along with this tutorial, you can download the relevant Blender and STL files here, and follow along. >

January 28, 2015

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Invasive Heart Surgery Avoided as Advances in 3D Printing Improve Safety of Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR)

3D printing is revolutionizing the treatment of aortic stenosis, as reported by researchers from St. Joseph's Hospital in Phoenix, Arizona and presented at the 2014 Radiological Society of North American (RSNA) meeting. Aortic stenosis is a deadly condition where the valve that connects the heart to the aorta does not open properly. The aortic valve, as it is called, is designed to open freely to allow blood pumped from the heart to move in a forward direction into the aorta, the main artery of

December 4, 2014

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Amazing 3D Printed Models on Display at RSNA 2014

3D printing is a hot topic at this year's Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) meeting in Chicago. I've been involved in medical 3D printing for the past two years, and every month there seems to be more interest. At this year's RSNA meeting, the level of interest is higher than I have ever seen before. There are literally dozens of sessions related to 3D printing in radiology, and they all seem to be very well attended. The Sunday session on "Fundamentals of 3D Printing" had a line out

December 1, 2014

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Using 3D Printed Liver Models for Guidance During Liver Surgery

Researchers from Nagoya University in Japan are now using customized 3D printed liver models created from patient Computer Tomography (CT) scans for guidance during liver surgery, as reported at the 2014 Radiological Society of North America meeting. The human liver is a complex organ. Liver cells, called hepatocytes, do the work of cleaning the blood of toxins and waste -- the primary function of the liver. Hepatocytes are dependent on a complex network of vascular structures, including bile du

December 1, 2014

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Revealing the Beauty of the Microscopic World Through 3D Printing

There is tremendous beauty and diversity in nature that goes unnoticed by humans because it is simply too small for us to see and appreciate. Embodi3D member Michael Holland hopes to change that. Via his eponymous company Michael Holland Productions, he has created a fascinating traveling museum exhibit called MacroMicro that reveals the striking complexity and beauty of the microscopic world through high-resolution micro-CT scanning and 3D printing. On the remote island of Iriomote-jima, p

November 24, 2014

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Maker Profile: Dr. Marco Vettorello

Dr. Marco Vettorello is an anesthesiologist and intensive care physician in Italy. On the side he has been creating high quality anatomical models that are of great value for medical education. He has agreed to share his models with the Embodi3D community. All are available for free download. The models that he has shared include: Human heart Anatomic skull Maxillary bone Frontal bone Mandible Sphenoid bone Thanks very

October 21, 2014

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3D Printable Human Heart Model

Lately I've been working on creating a 3D printed human heart from a CT scan. Printing cardiovascular structures like the heart is more difficult than bony structures since the blood vessels are usually not well visualized without a CT scan that uses intravenous contrast. Furthermore, the heart is always moving, and special techniques need to be performed during the scan to generate high-quality images that are free from motion artifact. This is one of several models I've been working on. I

September 24, 2014

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Member success with 3D Printed Skull

Community member Mike Kessler has successfully printed a half skull available for download in the File Vault using a filament printer. He made the skull to help a family member who is learning skull anatomy in medical school. The skull looks great. Fantastic job Mike! Check out Mike's complete album here. If you have had success with printing one of the 3D anatomic models available for download on the site, please let us know how things went. If you are creating your own medical 3D models,

September 13, 2014

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3D Printable Lace Skull, Free for Download.

I've been working on ways to artistically expand on 3D printed anatomic models beyond an exact replica of the anatomy. My first project is this Lace Skull. The skull is based on an anatomically accurate skull generated from a CT scan. I have made several of the earlier skull models available for download on the Embodi3D website here and here. Using a variety of methods, I have transformed the skull and given it a unique lace-like appearance. The overall surface contours are still anatomically ac

September 4, 2014

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