ISO/IEC 3532-1 brings greate potential to 3D medical printing

Medical 3D printing is a fast growing and rapidly evolving sector, used in a wide range of areas. In order to reach its true potential, a new international standard has just been published, which  provides guidelines that can facilitate the sharing of data and processes.

 Widely used in developing medical devices such as in orthopedics, medical 3D printing enables personalized designs and faster, cheaper prototyping and production.

By allowing the creation of patient-specific anatomical models, 3D printing has helped to improve outcomes in diagnosis and surgery

Professor Kyu Won Shim, acting convenor of the working group for 3D printing and scanning in the ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee on ICT said the technology allows for very complex designs and he said: “The right software is needed to be able to accurately and consistently visualize human anatomy, yet there are few guidelines and little guidance at an international level specifically for 3D printing technology,”. He also added: “This standard provides standardized procedures and methods for medical 3D printing modeling software, which will be extremely helpful in domestic and overseas medical 3D printing software licensing.”

The newly published standard, ISO/IEC 3532-1 Medical image-based modelling for 3D printing - Part 1: General requirements aims to resolve that issue by specifying the requirements for medical image-based modelling for 3D printing for medical applications.

It covers aspects such as the process flow, and data processing requirements such as 3D reconstruction and visualization, calibration and validation of 3D and 3D conversion and file format.

Widespread use of the standard will help the technology to flourish, through recommending best practices and harmonizing language around the technology.