3d Printed CT scans

Andy

Andy

Controlled Chaos
Staff member
Has anyone tested converting CT scan data to something that can be 3d printed? It sounds pretty easy, once you get past the whole "trusting a free conversion service with a file of your medical data" thing.

I'm curious what worked and what didn't. I had some scans done a while back and would be super interested in printing replacement body parts (don't bother googling that; I already checked and that's absolutely how it works).
 
I have not tried it as I don't have any data to use, but they are conceptually really the same thing, especially when you look at resin printer slices are literally photo images of each slice just like the CT scans. If you want anything resin printed let me know, but if there is software converting the CT files to 3d models it should be printable on any printer if properly supported!
 
That makes sense. I'll let you know if I want to run anything through resin, but I suspect the data will be noisy enough that it's not work the higher resolution of resin.

I would be interested in seeing the slicing process for a resin printer some time, though 🤔
 
Yeah depending on the software that converts the slices back to a 3d model, you may need to bring it into blender and edit the wireframe based on how other CT prints I have seen looked.

I’m hoping to explore a similar 3d model cleanup as i have been 3d scanning rooms and objects for VR and 3d printing but they also have similar inaccuracy in the final model that just needs a little manual cleanup! Especially for printing where we need the models to be manifold for the slicer to treat them as solids compared to in videogames where they are all just hallow facades so it doesnt matter if there are gaps in the mesh.
 
I've never gone from blender to printed, but I've seen a lot about the resulting model not being manifold. Do you recommend any resources, or should what I find on Google be pretty good?
 
Yeah there is the free Autodesk Meshmixer which is great for doing repairs or combining 3d models with boolean operations and making OBJ files into solids but also now-a-days you can just let prusaslicer fix non-manifold objects using the netfabb plugin that is optional during prusaslicer installation.

I mainly use blender if i want to want edit a mesh’s individual points because blender has gotten much easier to use in recent versions but I still mainly use blender for rendering previews and generating glTF files of the objects for displaying them on websites using modelviewer library.
 
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