Rapid prototyping fabrication and finite element evaluation of the three-dimensional medical pelvic model

This paper presents a non-uniform, periodic closed B-spline approximation algorithm for the fabrication of a medical pelvic model, based on rapid prototyping, and also gives the finite element evaluation of the pelvic model. Rapid prototyping (RP), when used in fabricating medical prosthesis, has a strict requirement for closeness and impermeability of STL files. Incorrect data structure in STL files will cause the subsequent slicing process not to proceed. The non-uniform periodic closed B-spline curve approximation method was applied to processing CT data. The precision and size of STL files was improved to optimize the RP model of the pelvis. Finally, the model of the pelvis was evaluated with the finite element method. Results suggest that a high similarity has been achieved in terms of shape, size and biomechanical properties of the pelvic model and the normal one, which validates our argument that rapid prototyping with non-uniform, periodic closed B-spline algorithm is suitable for the fabrication of a pelvic model, which will prove to be significant in the design of pelvic prostheses .