{"doi":"10.1615/faim1998.180","title":"AN INTEGRATED RAPID PROTOTYPING AND VACUUM CASTING SYSTEM FOR MEDICAL APPLICATIONS","abstract":"Product evaluation in the design stage has played a critical role in the process of developing new products. Methods to build prototypes, especially functional prototypes, have been a deciding factor for design verification. Recognizing a new challenge to produce multiple functional prototypes, an effort has been made to integrate three state-of-the-art technologies, namely, 3D solid modeling, rapid prototyping and vacuum casting. A system architecture that combines hardware and computer software is designed and implemented. The paper presents a case study to demonstrate the procedure of applying the integrated system on implanting electrodes in the visual cortex of a monkey. Six replicas of a monkey skull are produced for surgeons to practice the surgical operation. Image data obtained from CT scans of a monkey head are successfully used to construct a 3D solid model to fabricate the 6 functional prototypes. The superior quality of these replicas has offered a unique opportunity for exploratory surgery to restore sight.","journal":"University Libraries (University of Maryland)","year":2023,"id":415985,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9541,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1198403,"name":"Rena Surana","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1198001,"name":"Guangming Zhang","orcid":"0000-0001-5530-0949","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":7,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:22:15.958504Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}