Medical 3D printing: methods to standardize terminology and report trends.

BackgroundMedical 3D printing is expanding exponentially, with tremendous potential yet to be realized in nearly all facets of medicine. Unfortunately, multiple informal subdomain-specific isolated terminological 'silos' where disparate terminology is used for similar concepts are also arising as rapidly. It is imperative to formalize the foundational terminology at this early stage to facilitate future knowledge integration, collaborative research, and appropriate reimbursement. The purpose of this work is to develop objective, literature-based consensus-building methodology for the medical 3D printing domain to support expert consensus.ResultsWe first quantitatively survey the temporal, conceptual, and geographic diversity of all existing published applications within medical 3D printing literature and establish the existence of self-isolating research clusters. We then demonstrate an automated objective methodology to aid in establishing a terminological consensus for the field based on objective analysis of the existing literature. The resultant analysis provides a rich overview of the 3D printing literature, including publication statistics and trends globally, chronologically, technologically, and within each major medical discipline. The proposed methodology is used to objectively establish the dominance of the term "3D printing" to represent a collection of technologies that produce physical models in the medical setting. We demonstrate that specific domains do not use this term in line with objective consensus and call for its universal adoption.ConclusionOur methodology can be applied to the entirety of medical 3D printing literature to obtain a complete, validated, and objective set of recommended and synonymous definitions to aid expert bodies in building ontological consensus

Hybrid Prototypes to Assist Modeling Automotive Seats

The development of new modular seats is an important issue in the automotive industry. However, is very time consuming and costly. Virtual models and hybrid prototypes could accelerate the car seats development process. The hybrid prototypes are mainly manufactured by rapid prototyping with multi materials. The objective of this paper is to establish a methodology to develop innovative lightweight multi-functional, modular car seats to be used in Multi-Purpose Vehicles (MPV), by means of FEA simulation and rapid prototyping additive/subtractive technologies utilizing multi materials. A case study is presented to validate the developed methodology. The manufactured hybrid prototype’s reproduces the main functionalities of the MPV modular seat, namely its three key positions: normal, stored and table.Mechanical Engineerin

Rapid prototyping and AI programming environments applied to payload modeling

This effort focused on using artificial intelligence (AI) programming environments and rapid prototyping to aid in both space flight manned and unmanned payload simulation and training. Significant problems addressed are the large amount of development time required to design and implement just one of these payload simulations and the relative inflexibility of the resulting model to accepting future modification. Results of this effort have suggested that both rapid prototyping and AI programming environments can significantly reduce development time and cost when applied to the domain of payload modeling for crew training. The techniques employed are applicable to a variety of domains where models or simulations are required

Semi-automated creation of converged iTV services: From macromedia director simulations to services ready for broadcast

While sound and video may capture viewers’ attention, interaction can captivate them. This has not been available prior to the advent of Digital Television. In fact, what lies at the heart of the Digital Television revolution is this new type of interactive content, offered in the form of interactive Television (iTV) services. On top of that, the new world of converged networks has created a demand for a new type of converged services on a range of mobile terminals (Tablet PCs, PDAs and mobile phones). This paper aims at presenting a new approach to service creation that allows for the semi-automatic translation of simulations and rapid prototypes created in the accessible desktop multimedia authoring package Macromedia Director into services ready for broadcast. This is achieved by a series of tools that de-skill and speed-up the process of creating digital TV user interfaces (UI) and applications for mobile terminals. The benefits of rapid prototyping are essential for the production of these new types of services, and are therefore discussed in the first section of this paper. In the following sections, an overview of the operation of content, service, creation and management sub-systems is presented, which illustrates why these tools compose an important and integral part of a system responsible of creating, delivering and managing converged broadcast and telecommunications services. The next section examines a number of metadata languages candidates for describing the iTV services user interface and the schema language adopted in this project. A detailed description of the operation of the two tools is provided to offer an insight of how they can be used to de-skill and speed-up the process of creating digital TV user interfaces and applications for mobile terminals. Finally, representative broadcast oriented and telecommunication oriented converged service components are also introduced, demonstrating how these tools have been used to generate different types of services

Digitally interpreting traditional folk crafts

The cultural heritage preservation requires that objects persist throughout time to continue to communicate an intended meaning. The necessity of computer-based preservation and interpretation of traditional folk crafts is validated by the decreasing number of masters, fading technologies, and crafts losing economic ground. We present a long-term applied research project on the development of a mathematical basis, software tools, and technology for application of desktop or personal fabrication using compact, cheap, and environmentally friendly fabrication devices, including '3D printers', in traditional crafts. We illustrate the properties of this new modeling and fabrication system using several case studies involving the digital capture of traditional objects and craft patterns, which we also reuse in modern designs. The test application areas for the development are traditional crafts from different cultural backgrounds, namely Japanese lacquer ware and Norwegian carvings. Our project includes modeling existing artifacts, Web presentations of the models, automation of the models fabrication, and the experimental manufacturing of new designs and forms

Study on an integrated system of rapid prototyping and manufacturing for 3D Digitizer to CNC Mill : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master in Technology at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

The main purpose of this project is to develop a low cost, effective, user friendly interface software for staff and students to integrate the designing and manufacturing facilities in the Institute of Technology and Engineering (ITE) at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand. The project involves establishment of an integrated CAD/CAM/CAE system, the identification of software requirements, selection of software development tool kit, definition of hardware configuration, software development and final experiments and tests. ITE has a laboratory, where are equipped with one CNC milling machine, one CNC lathe, one Injection Moulding machine, one desktop 3D scanner and one 3D plotter. In addition, all the CAD/CAM/CAE software have been installed on the PCs. Based on the analysis and utilisation of these existing facilities, it is found that they are not smoothly integrated; no linkage between the CAD/CAM/CAE system and desktop Rapid Prototyping facilities; file formats used by each of the system are not compatible. Through this project, the investigation of the possibility to integrate the system and the feasibility to develop a software to bridge the 3D scanner and the CNC mill, was carried out. A first try was successfully made using Borland C++5.0 to convert the 3D scanned data into NC program. Then, using Borland C++ Builder 5.0 created a user-friendly interface for conversion of 3D Digitizer to CNC Mill. Next, the different scales of wax models were satisfactorily processed on the CNC milling machine by inputting the converted NC program

Low-fi skin vision: A case study in rapid prototyping a sensory substitution system

We describe the design process we have used to develop a minimal, twenty vibration motor Tactile Vision Sensory Substitution (TVSS) system which enables blind-folded subjects to successfully track and bat a rolling ball and thereby experience 'skin vision'. We have employed a low-fi rapid prototyping approach to build this system and argue that this methodology is particularly effective for building embedded interactive systems. We support this argument in two ways. First, by drawing on theoretical insights from robotics, a discipline that also has to deal with the challenge of building complex embedded systems that interact with their environments; second, by using the development of our TVSS as a case study: describing the series of prototypes that led to our successful design and highlighting what we learnt at each stage

Designing and evaluating the usability of a machine learning API for rapid prototyping music technology

To better support creative software developers and music technologists' needs, and to empower them as machine learning users and innovators, the usability of and developer experience with machine learning tools must be considered and better understood. We review background research on the design and evaluation of application programming interfaces (APIs), with a focus on the domain of machine learning for music technology software development. We present the design rationale for the RAPID-MIX API, an easy-to-use API for rapid prototyping with interactive machine learning, and a usability evaluation study with software developers of music technology. A cognitive dimensions questionnaire was designed and delivered to a group of 12 participants who used the RAPID-MIX API in their software projects, including people who developed systems for personal use and professionals developing software products for music and creative technology companies. The results from the questionnaire indicate that participants found the RAPID-MIX API a machine learning API which is easy to learn and use, fun, and good for rapid prototyping with interactive machine learning. Based on these findings, we present an analysis and characterization of the RAPID-MIX API based on the cognitive dimensions framework, and discuss its design trade-offs and usability issues. We use these insights and our design experience to provide design recommendations for ML APIs for rapid prototyping of music technology. We conclude with a summary of the main insights, a discussion of the merits and challenges of the application of the CDs framework to the evaluation of machine learning APIs, and directions to future work which our research deems valuable

Unified Approach in the DSS Development Process

The structure of today's decision support environment become very complex due to new generation of Business Intelligence applications and technologies like Data Warehouse, OLAP (On Line Analytical Processing) and Data Mining. In this respect DSS development process are not simple and needs an adequate methodology or framework able to manage different tools and platforms to achieve manager's requirements. The DSS development process must be view like a unified and iterative set of activities and operations. The new techniques based on Unified Process (UP) methodology and UML (Unified Modeling Language) it seems to be appropriate for DSS development using prototyping and RAD (Rapid Application Development) techniques. In this paper we present a conceptual framework for development and integrate Decision Support Systems using Unified Process Methodology and UML.Decision Support Systems, Unified Process, UML, Prototyping, DSS Tools