TRI2SOLID - AN APPLICATION OF REVERSE ENGINEERING METHODS TO THE CREATION OF CAD MODELS OF BONE SEGMENTS

For many biomechanical engineering activities it would be useful to ha ve the three dimensional (3D) geometry of bone segments available in f orm of vectorial models within computer aided design (CAD) environment s. In this paper a new method for the semi-automatic conversion of a s tack of CT images of a femur into a CAD solid model is described. This method is relatively simple, accurate, and requires only a 3D CAD plu s a few additional programs available in the public domain. The propos ed method was used to convert the CT scan data set of a human femur in to a valid CAD model, the resulting solid was two times more accurate than that obtained using the commonly used procedure based on 2D segme ntation. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.