CISE Research Instrumentation: Acquisition of a Rapid Prototyping System

CDA-9529346 Peter K. Allen Gerard Ateshian Van C. Mow John Kender Columbia University Acquisition of a Rapid Prototyping System Rapid-Prototyping (RP) machines have created an opportunity for development of a '3-D FAX' which can transmit a physical object's model to another site where it may be reconstructed. The initial goal is to automate the model scanning process, reducing the time, cost and operator intervention needs of current systems. The project also addresses system issues in model-acquisition, sensor-planning, and data- compression that affect 3-D FAX; without the proposed RP machine this cannot proceed. A second project is to use the RP machine in prosthesis design. A large variety of cadaver joints can be imaged with stereophotogrammetry, CT, and MRI to produce model prototypes. These models can then be built with RP equipment and tested experimentally to verify that they adapt to different individuals and produce normal joint mechanics. The goal is to take the imaging tools required to perform the tasks outlined above and integrate them with RP equipment to form an efficient and clinically proven process. The third project is to create objects with varied surface depth to test a shape recovery method using multiple light sources. The equipment allows production to specification of different objects with unusual surface configurations to properly test and evaluate the reconstruction method.