Solid Free-form Fabrication:
Solid Free-form Fabrication (also known as Rapid Prototyping - RP) is a manufacturing technique that constructs a 3D part by building up one thin cross-sectional layer after another, requiring much less time than older conventional methods. The time required to construct even complex parts is measured in hours instead of days or weeks.
The interest of our research area for SFF is on the reproduction of complex shapes in medicine and industry.

Medicine:

We applied a SFF technique, the Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM), to obtain replicas of lumen vessel starting from solid models obtained from CT datasets. In particular, we manufactured a real size human carotid including its bifurcation region. The starting point of the reproduction process was a CT dataset consisting in 43 cross-sections of the region of interest. The used material is a resin named ABS (Acrylonitrile-Butadiene-Stirene).

Mathematics:

We applied a SFF technique, the Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM), to obtain replicas of complex geometric surfaces as the Moebius Strip starting from one parameterization of his.

Industry:

We applied a SFF technique, the Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM), to obtain replicas of complex shapes as mechanical or articulated components obtained from valid solid models.