Thursday, December 18, 2014

Derby the dog got 3D-printed paw prothethics, now watch him run


Derby was born with deformations in both of his front legs, making movement and any kind of speed difficult, if not impossible. Now, he can run. The husky mix was fitted out with two prosthetics, custom-made on 3D sculpting software to fit the pup's forearms.

With some help from 3D Systems and several iterations later, and the curved prosthetics you see above became the final build. "The great thing about using 3D technology in Derby's case, is having these images on file on a computer, and being able to print them.

It is a lot quicker than having to hand sculpt every single mold and rebuild these braces five to ten times," explained Kevin Atkins, 3D Systems' Freeform Product Manager. The team settled on these curved designs because there was the fear that more pointed iterations (like running blades seen on humans) would get caught in softer ground.

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