Overview of the use of 3D printing in forensic medicine
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W. Schweitzer1 · M. Thali1 · E. Aldomar2 · L. Ebert1 1 2
© The Author(s) 2020
Institut für Rechtsmedizin, Campus Irchel, Universität Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland Department of Knowledge Visualization, ZHdK Zurich University of the Arts, Zurich, Switzerland
Overview of the use of 3D printing in forensic medicine Introduction Since the late 1990s 3D printing has become increasingly popular also in the field of medicine [28]. As an indicator of just how high the popularity of these devices has become, one may take note that even exploitable software vulnerabilities of 3D printers have become the subject of dedicated research [30]. This article provides a pragmatic overview of current technical options and current applications in the field of forensic medicine. Why 3D printing? If tools, replacement parts or new devices are developed, a relatively affordable on-site accessibility for rapid prototyping can be an asset, while physical 3D model use for teaching or presentation may be regarded as exceptional.
What is 3D-printing The term 3D-printing describes a range of methods that build objects by adding material layer by layer. A particularly popular and affordable method is fused deposition modeling (FDM) that uses material extrusion, where typically, a thermoplastic material is continuously fed through a heated nozzle that melts and layers the material at first onto the print bed and later onto the already printed object layers (an illustrated explanation is given in . Fig. 1 using our 3D printer, a modified Replicator 2X model, originally manufactured by MakerBot Industries, New York City, NY, USA). There, desktop printing of polylactic acid (PLA) and acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) appear to be the most widespread technologies [4, 10, 40].
The use of PLA enables particularly fast 3D printing and the material may be relatively cheap [12]; however, 3D printing is not restricted to that. Other methods contain photopolymerization (whereas a liquid resin is hardened by exposure to light), material jetting (where the photosensitive material may be added as droplets into the print bed before ultraviolet light is applied to harden the material), binder jetting, sheet lamination, directed energy deposition, and powder bed fusion [29]. Thus, the term additive manufacturing has been used for 3D printing. A particular strength of this type of object creation lies in that a relatively fast and affordable method (such as PLA or ABS printing) can be used to “instantly” print any digital 3D model. Having such options on-site invites prototype testing, the creation of new objects or replacement parts, or 3D objects for a simple demonstration. The term rapid prototyping has been used as another synonym for 3D printing, but it really designates a different process: when the designer has created a digital 3D model during development and improvement cycles, 3D printing enables relatively fast, relatively affordable and relatively precise production of one physical instance of the digital 3D model. That physical object then can be inspe
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