Fabrication of Repairing Skull Bone Defects Based on the Rapid Prototyping

Abstract

The Rapid Prototyping (RP) manufacture technology, computer tomography (CT) image processing, and mechanical analyses were adopted to repair a skull defect injury. After the patient was inspected by spiral CT the data was exported to Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) format. The data was processed with Mimics software to eliminate noise and gray-level registration. The processing filtered out the parenchyma data and preserved the bone data. The STL files were analyzed and processed by the Magics and put into the RP equipment. The RP equipment is one type of Stereo Lithography Apparatus (SLA) with laser light spot diameter that is