Open CASCADE and rapid prototyping in human carotid lumen reconstruction

Image processing algorithms, CAD-CAM tools and rapid prototyping (RP) techniques are able to produce complex lumen artery replicas. This work presents a system for manufacturing the lumen of human carotid from computed tomography acquisition. The pipe-line of manufacturing process of a human carotid lumen replication is presented. Each stage of the pipe-line is briefly discussed. Technical details of the 3D surface reconstruction phase, based on the Open Cascade geometric modelling software, and the RP manufaturing process based on Fused Deposition Modelling are presented

Sistemi informatici avanzati per l'analisi stratigrafica archeologica

Questo documento descrive le potenzialità derivanti dall’applicazione di affermate tecniche e metodologie ICT nell’ambito dell’indagine di siti archeologici. Queste metodologie sono organizzate in una architettura di sistema informativo adeguato a supportare l’attività dell’archeologo per la ricerca, la didattica e la fruizione. L’architettura proposta cerca di estendere le potenzialità d’uso delle metodologie di analisi non distruttiva, delle tecniche di ricostruzione di geometrie di reperti, e delle tecniche di prototipazione rapida per la manifattura di reperti, utilizzati principalmente nella diagnosi e restauro di beni culturali, ad ambiti più estesi quali l’analisi stratigrafica archeologica. L’architettura si basa sugli strumenti software ed ambienti di sviluppo sperimentati nel Progetto Laboratorio Avanzato per la Progettazione e la Simulazione al Calcolatore

The Klein Bottle: Variations on a Theme

opposite sides identified in the sense of the arrows. The Klein bottle (K in the following) is a topological object that can be defined as the closed square[0, 2π]×[0, 2π] with the opposite sides identified according to the equivalence relatio

Inverting beauty

In this paper we give a simple application of spherical inversion, the most elementary among the non elementary geometric transformations, and of some of its generalizations. The principal motivation was an attempt to increase the interest for mathematics in high school students by proposing an easy but mathe- matically rigorous technique for creating new images, new shapes and, by means of 3D printing, new nice material objects. Also in order to put once again in evidence the possibility that mathematics can have something in common with Nature and the Arts. Amongst the generalizations of inversion (see [Bl], [H], [Ep], [S1]) , we find ideally more close to our point of view the hyperbolic inversion due to G. V. Schiaparelli1, an important Italian astronomer not as much known as a geometer, who in [S2], in 1898, tried to represent organic forms and the change from one species to another through geometr

Physical human lumen carotid reconstruction: life-size models by rapid prototyping

Poster of SPIE Conference held in San Diego - CA, USA, 10/15 FebruaryRapid Prototyping (RP) is a technique used in industry for manufacturing prototypes. Its capability to physically reproduce geometrical complex shapes is getting increasing interest in many fields of medicine. In the field of vascular surgery, replicas of artery lumen have utility in complex cases or when standard imaging is felt to be equivocal. Replicas can also facilitate experimental studies of computational vascular fluid-dynamics permitting in-vitro reproductions of blood flow in living subjects before and after surgery. The VIrtual VAscular (VIVA) project at CRS4, developed a system able to process three-dimensional (3D) datasets extracted from a Computer Tomography (CT) apparatus, visualize them, reconstruct the geometry of arteries of specific patients, and simulate blood flow in them. In our work, the applicability of RP techniques to VIVA’s real size replicas of an autoptic carotid vessel lumen is presented and an overview of the RP based system developed is provided. The techniques used in our prototype are discussed and experimental results for the creation of a human carotid lumen replica are analysed. We discuss in detail the pipeline of the manufacturing process: 3D geometric reconstruction from segmented points, geometry tessellation, STL (Stereo Lithography format) conversion. Moreover we illustrate some technical details of the specific RP technique called Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM), used to build the lumen replicas, the materials used for prototypes, throughput time and costs of the FDM models realized. The system is totally based on open-source software. This enables us to control each step of the pipeline, from data acquisition to STL export file. In this context, we present main sources of error encountered during all manufacturing process stages