Design of Corrective Inserts for Patients with Feet Dysfunctions with Reverse Engineering Techniques

These days CAD systems are successfully used in medicine and orthopaedics. Nevertheless, there is still a need of developing of an efficient methodology of their use in case of designing of products which fulfil patient's requirements according to their disabilities and faulty postures. The cognitive goal of the presented work was disposure to answer the question whether? And how reverse engineering techniques would enable the design of an orthopaedic inserts for people with static flat-valgus foot. The accomplishment of the research problem defined in such a way required working out of solutions for the following detailed research problems: in which way and how to make feet casts to get the precise models - the input data for the 3D scanning process, which 3D scanning technique to apply, taking into consideration available technical means, and how to determine the placement distance of the corrective element for the designed correction insert. The main research areas encompassed inter alia: interviewing the potential patient and examining of their lower limb, making of feet pedographs, creating of feet casts negatives, preparing of casts for 3D scanning, models digitization, and feet inserts design.