Direct 3D Printing of a hand splint using Reverse Engineering

Abstract

Abstract The present work is focused on the direct manufacturing of a hand splint using free-open access software and a low-cost three-dimensional printer (3DP). The hand digital model was created using panoramic photos by a common mobile phone camera. The photos were used as input to the “3DF-Zephyr” free software for creating the hand surface model. Then, the hand surface model was transferred into the “Autodesk fusion 360” free software and the surface model of the hand splint was generated and modified according to the design requirements. Sequentially, both hand and hand splint were translated to Stereolithography (STL) files and transferred to open access “MakerBot” 3D printing software in order to prepare the G-codes for 3D printing. A low cost 3D printer was used for building the models while Polylactic acid (PLA) was the material of the customized 3D physical models.