A Semi-Automatic Method to Create an Affordable Three-Dimensional Printed Splint Using Open-Source and Free Software

Three-dimensional (3D) printed splints are becoming more feasible in recent years, showing promising lightweight, waterproof, and hygienic designs. A typical procedure to create 3D printed splints is obtaining the geometry of a body segment using a 3D scanner, creating a 3D printable splint model based on the geometry of the body segment, and 3D printing the splint. As technologies of 3D scanning and 3D printing become mature gradually, the main challenge to fabricate 3D printed splint is to create 3D printable splint models. To solve this challenge, researchers have proposed various methods to design 3D splint models. However, most methods require extensive 3D modeling skills that medical professionals are lacking. In this work, a semi-automatic method is proposed to create a 3D printable model. Given the geometry of a body segment obtained through a 3D scanner, the method includes three key steps: (1) create a draft splint lattice structure, (2) optimize the splint structure, and (3) create a 3D printable model based on the optimized structure. All the software adopted for this method is free and readily available, and thus, there is no additional cost to convert from a scanned geometry of a body segment to a 3D printable splint model. Because the majority of the work is done automatically, with initial training, a medical professional should be able to create a 3D printable model using the proposed method, given the geometry of a body segment. The proposed method is demonstrated by creating a 3D printed wrist splint and the demo is uploaded into GitHub, a popular open-source platform.