Rapid Prototyping for Medical Applications

In today's marketplace, medical device manufacturers, medical researchers, and health-care providers need to innovate quickly, put ideas into practice around the world, and precisely meet customer needs. The industry is turning to rapid prototyping methods like urethane casting, PolyJet printing, stereolithography, and fused deposition modeling for a variety of applications. The range of techniques, along with a growing array of engineering and prototyping materials, gives design engineers tremendous flexibility to meet the challenges of this fast-moving industry. These techniques are helping medical educators create detailed anatomical models, letting surgeons devise more ergonomic and patient-specific surgical tools, and helping device manufacturers compress their time to market.