The Segment, Slice, and 3D Print (SS3DP) Workflow of 3D Printing Eye Anatomy for Clinicians: A Proof-of-Concept Study

3D printing is becoming increasingly important as time passes, with the latest technologies driving innovation in many fields, including ophthalmology. However, more is needed to know how clinicians can become innovators in their daily practice without needing expert engineering knowledge of the underlying technologies. We aimed to address that shortcoming by developing a pipeline clinicians can use to 3D print. This workflow was named SS3DP: Segment, Slice, and 3D Print. It was tested by fabricating a 3D-printed eyeball. In terms of the results of this work, we observed that the segmentation process was imperfect due to the difficulty of segmenting small structures. The learning curve was steep initially, but the technique improved the more time spent on the segmentation platform. No quantitative analysis was carried out. Innovation in medicine is stifled if its leading participants, clinicians, cannot engage with it due to a lack of knowledge.