Högskolan i Skövde

In the medical field, traditional ways of producing custom orthoses using plaster casts is a time and labour consuming process. A method to develop custom orthoses through digital tools is possible but requires personnel with previous CAD experience. This project studies the design of custom foot orthoses through parameterization using digital tools such as 3D scanning, 3D modelling software, and 3D printing. This research was conducted with the User-Centred Product Design (UCPD) research group at the School of Engineering Science at the University of Skövde.

An initial study of the orthosis design process without parameterization was conducted to learn and evaluate the use of involved digital tools. This study led to potential improvements of the process with guidelines and alternatives. To optimise the studied process, guidelines were made to address identified problems and an automatic software to design the orthosis was made. Resulting software and guidelines were evaluated through 3D printing and user tests, demonstrating potential errors and giving valuable insights.

Results of the research were guidelines, errors to consider, and parameterization demonstrations applied to foot geometry. Although parameterization of the foot orthosis design was possible, further development and optimization of the process is necessary in future research to explore different geometry capture options, additive manufacturing alternatives, and parameterizing software.