Did you ever take a very close look at your fingers? They are incredibly complex machines, with not only shape and texture, but also motion. Imagine if fate caused the loss of one or more of them?

There are solutions today, such as those produced by Didrick Medical, who make a kind of finger-harness that fits over the hand and implements an "active-function artificial finger prostheses". The design permits a variety of finger loss scenarios to be resolved. This is their "X-Finger" product.

But the problem is in the build. Turns out that everyone's hands and fingers are pretty much unique. Who knew?

Didrick Medical's approach is to custom design each and every X-Finger to perfectly match the recipient. However, as you might suspect, the measurements are very complex, tedious and time consuming.

Enter 3D Laser Scanning from GKS Global Services, who used their equipment and software to gather the necessary 3D modelling data much more quickly than had been done manually. The scanning is done from a cast of the hand, presumably to avoid "twitches".

Once the 3D model is successfully captured and tweaked, SolidWorks takes over and the production process continues as normal. And the fingerless get new fingers.

Via LaserDesign

• Biorep Technologies creates tools for diabetes researchers and has created a "Pinch Valve" for indexing fluids and avoiding contamination of equipment and fluids, as well as a silicone membrane petri dish
• Arch Day Design creates tiny objects that interlock inside arthroscopic surgery patients to guide the microscopic tools.
• Ivivi Technologies uses Objet tech to rapidly create prototypes for a variety of non-invasive medical applications
• Orchid Orthopedic Solutions uses 3D tech to rapidly develop new implant applications for the orthopaedic, dental and cardiovascular markets.

We ran across an interesting video that talks about Materialise's ventures into the medical manufacturing space. We've posted about medical uses of 3D print tech before, but Materialise specializes in this niche, and have for quite some time.

Materialise produces 3D software specifically designed for this market: Mimics, which can transform medical 2D CT or MRI data into usable 3D models. From those models prosthetics or other medical implants can be derived. In the video you'll see students using the software to design a prosthetic leg for Cassidy the dog.

How popular is this approach? According to the video, "Nearly all orthopedic implant manufacturers are using Mimics to design custom hips and knees".

Via YouTube

This is a human brain I extracted from a public domain MRI dataset from Slicer3.4.

New Scientist reports on a medical breakthrough using 3D printing: exact replicas of finger bones have been produced. Christian Weinand of Berne Switzerland has been testing a new technique in which a 3D model of a finger bone is fed into a 3D printer, and an exact duplicate is printed. By using a suitable print medium (in this case "tricalcium phosphate and a type of polylactic acid - natural structural materials found in the human body") the resulting artificial bone can be inserted into the body and take over for the failed bone. Weinand says:

In theory, you could do any bone. Now I can put spares in my pocket if I want.

You're probably wondering exactly how you get a 3D model of a bone that requires replacement. If it's being replaced, presumably it's severely damaged, or even missing. The answer is straightforward - simply scan a model from its counterpart on the opposite hand! Obviously, this approach has some limitations, as there are singularly appearing bones, and what if both sides were damaged?

Via New Scientist

Both ProMetal and Sintef have been working on metal printing processes, quite different from traditional plastics and powders of other 3D print processses. One of the barriers to more common use of 3D printing (aside from cost and print time) is the robustness of the printed objects. If only they could be printed in something stronger, like, say, metal?

We'll add another metal service to the list today: Arcam AB, whose tagline is "CAD TO METAL". They're not kidding:

During the CAD to Metal process, an electron beam melts metal powder in a layer-by-layer process to build the physical part. The Arcam EBM machines use a powder bed configuration and are capable of producing multiple parts in the same build

This process appears similar to that used by ProMetal, and may have been where Shapeways printed the winning design in Titanium. But there's more to the story.

Arcam has teamed up with surgeons in New Zealand to produce custom-made metal implants to replace missing or crumbling bones. 3D scanning and modeling produces a design that is then printed in titanium. The implants are then placed within the patient's body and take over the role of inadequate natural bones and bone segments.

Via Arcam, 3News, Ponoko and TreeHugger