Ana Morris

Beneath the Skin: Emulating human physiology using a novel bitmap-based “voxel” 3D-printing workflow (2020)

3D printing expanding medical applications

As part of her Master of Design Innovation research, with supervisor Bernard Guy, Ana Morris used the multi-property printer J750 by Stratasys and the public data set of the VHP (Visible Human Project) to create a fully three-dimensional representation of a patient. The ability to print detail at voxel level (14 micron droplets), enables the display of more detailed information about that person than any other medium so far has been able to. As part of Ana’s research she used a bitmap-based 3D printing workflow, which utilized the available data fully instead of compressing it into standard stl files.

Holistic solutions

The human body is three dimensional. And even though most clinicians have been trained to draw conclusions from numerical and 2D imaging data, a three-dimensional representation would show the whole context easier and faster. Put in simple lay terms: it could easily show how ‘blockages’ in one part of the body cause problems in other parts. These kind of visual aids could make communication between clinicians as well as between doctors and patients more efficient.