Desktop Engineering/Manufacturing Systems

The immediate Spectra Group Ltd (SGL) contribution in responding to N93-045 is the capacity to produce rapid prototypes directly from CT scans using stereolithography. SGL has been printing medical models derived from CT scans for more than a year and has access to industrial CT scan devices (section 3. 4. e.), the resolution obtainable in the best of which is 100 microns in all dimensions. The goal of the work proposed is to develop a device which will produce a functional part of known dimension from scan data obtained either from a combined scan file obtained from laser scanners and from computer tomography (CT). The objectives are to evaluate and make operational laser scan/steriolithography interfaces and develop protocols for scanning surfaces, mapping surfaces, and printing the ouput; to convert the output from laser scan/computer tomography into an assempbled CAD file for editing and outputting in an intelligent digital format; to evaluate the accuracy and precision of the technique; to compare the accuracy of CT scan/stereolithography solid images with those whose surface data are obtained from laser scans; to begin, in consultation with Professor D. C. Neckers' research group at Bowling Green State University, the development of chemistries by means of which this data can be converted to stereolithographic parts which can be fired to ceramics for direct application or for use in molds, or directly to metals such as aluminum; to lay out a desk top manufacturing device being the size of a simple office copy machine.