Week Three

We received our printed plastic model of a simple mouse femur.

We got the CT Scan of the mouse femur, and used ImageJ to view the it in 2D. We then imported the extracted file to ITK Snap in order to see the femur in 3D and tried to convert the file type to .stl so that we could import it to Creo.

By the end of class we were able to get a model together, but we had difficulties in sending it to the printer.  Our first files were too large to send, and then when we tried compressing the files, they came out corrupted and weren't able to print.

The initial CAD model we created

After much struggling with trying to simplify the model to decrease the file size, we had a breakthrough over the weekend when an additional feature of InVesalius was discovered that allowed the removal of extraneous parts.  Not only did this reduce the file size by almost half, but it also enabled us to eliminate things such as the knee cap which showed up in the CT scan, but are not studied in this project.  A walk-through will be posted sometime this week.
Unfortunately, we still have few ideas for how we might be able to edit the model, but that task will be tackled when it comes time.

The second healthy bone model we created.  This one lacks the extraneous portions, and the surface of the bone is smoother, simplifying the file and reducing the amount of waste that would be created during printing.