kakaydin Posted December 7, 2014 Share Posted December 7, 2014 I only recently discovered that 3D printing is available to the masses and am really excited about its role in future medicine. The durable devices, the surgical instrumentation, the educational aids, oh my! I'd like to tinker around a bit, so the question is what modeling programs are best suited for the complex, organic architectural motifs of the human body? Long ago, I worked with engineering SW like autocad, ProE, and Catia, but would like to know if anyone has suggestions for programs better suited for body parts. Any favorites out there? Especially free ones Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Mike Posted December 8, 2014 Share Posted December 8, 2014 Hello kakaydin, This is a real sticking point with 3D printing in medicine. There is indeed enormous potential, but real innovation is currently limited by the lack of availability and high price of software that can do medical 3D printing. That being said with patience and practice you can do it. I actually don't use CAD software to prep my models for 3D printing. You will need to use some software package that can read DICOM images and generate an STL file. I use Osirix, a free open source DICOM reader for Macintosh. In this software you segment the structure you want and then export it to STL. From there I import it into Blender. This is a free open-source software package on most platforms designed for CGI animation. Because animation often deals with organic shapes, it is better than true CAD software. Blender has a tough learning curve but is capable once you have invested some time (and it's free!). I have a series of tutorials that I have planned to release on the Embodi3D website in the next month or two on just how to do this. If you like, I can let you know when I get them online. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Holland Posted December 27, 2014 Share Posted December 27, 2014 I would also definitely be interested in seeing those tutorials, Dr. Mike! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mplishka Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 Hi All! Just found this site via Dr. Mike's Twitter profile. I wanted to share some software that people can play with that are free for segmentation, etc. Slicer: http://www.slicer.org/ Very straightforward and clear tutorials. Devide: http://code.google.com/p/devide/ Convoluted but still very useful. The folks at TUDeflt have some very cool stuff ITK-Snap http://www.itksnap.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php Semi-automated segmentation. MiaLite: http://www.mia-solution.com/downloads.html Free for academic use. Seems pretty cool. Haven't had a chance to play with it yet but will. Finally, here's a site that has some pretty impressive tools: I Do Imaging: http://www.idoimaging.com/home Just great overall resource. Looking forward to the future with all of you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Mike Posted January 17, 2015 Share Posted January 17, 2015 Thanks for the links Mike! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mplishka Posted January 17, 2015 Share Posted January 17, 2015 You're welcome, Dr. Mike! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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