3D printed exo-prosthetic leg becomes a customizable body part

3D printed exo-prosthetic leg becomes a customizable body part
images courtesy of william root

the ‘exo-prosthetic leg’ created by adam root, is a 3D printed artificial limb that used modern technologies to fabricate the customizable, intimate, form-taking body part. developed to resolve the time intensive, costly and tedious current process of adapting a prosthesis to an amputee’s specific anatomy, this design enhances a combination of a 3D scanner, printer and modeling software in order to create a more precise and affordable manufacturing procedure.

a custom pattern on the surface matches the clients aesthetic and fashion style

scanning technologies such as an inverted laser, form a highly precise virtual model of the patient’s residual limb and matches its anatomy to within a fraction of a millimeter. this, as well as the MIT biomechatronics lab developed fitsocket that captures leg tissue properties to enable a better fit, is then ready for 3D software modeling. all this information is combined in a custom-patterned mesh model and is hollowed out into an exo-skeleton, to reduce weight. by fusing together titanium dust particles in a laser sintering process, an extremely durable, lightweight and biocompatible prosthetic is made.

titanium dust particles are fused together to manufacture the limb

a close up of the mesh design

[h/t] gizmag