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The development of computer-aided patient-specific template design software for 3D printing in cranio-maxillofacial
Afaque R Memon1, Dongyuan Li1, Junlei Hu1
1School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China.
Background:
The patient-specific templates for osteotomy often have complex surface features. Using current commercial software to design such templates is quite complicated, tedious and unrepeatable.
Aims:
In this study, a novel surgical planning system for oral and maxillofacial surgery named EasyTemplate is developed, aiming to help doctors shorten the modelling time and assure the reliability in template design.
Materials & Methods:
In the simplified design process of an osteotomy guide, the main template can be formed efficiently using a surface offsetting algorithm, which is based on isosurface extraction and oriented bounding box. Thereafter, the cutting grooves can be generated automatically.
Results:
A complicated surgical guide could be built accurately in about 10 min. Clinical orthognathic cases were conducted successfully using osteotomy and repositioning templates designed by EasyTemplate.
Discussion:
Compared with commercially available softwares, higher efficiency and simpler design process were achieved, moreover, the time cost is one-third or even less.
Conclusion:
EasyTemplate can be a useful alternative to traditional softwares. This software allows the auto-generation algorithm which helps avoid a tedious modeling process while providing basic shapes for designers.
