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Looking to invest in a CAD/CAM system possibly with an in-shoe pressure measuring facility. Any advice on reliable, proven systems with contact details of suppliers/manufacturers greatly appreciated.

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Mark

I don't think such a thing exists. The RS scan system does something a bit like this but I think we have had the discussion before re the prescribing of orthoses from 2D data capture.
The CAD systems out there include Amfit, Paromed and a german company called Ideas - http://www.ideas.be - might be worth a look. If you want an analysis system have a look at the Orthomed system but this does not allow you to make the orthoses, however it is a fairly impressive gait capture system.
I am not endorsing any of these system and I would advise taking a cynical look at any of them.

Hope this helps

Phil

Don't believe you can make a good orthotic from 2D data BTW.

To be honest Mark you can do it better and cheaper by buying a commercial 3d design package, a 3d digitizer and milling machine. Just depends on how many you want to make per day, how much time you've got to learn how to use the software and how complex you want to make the orthotics. I've been using my system for approx. 2 months and have taught myself how to do just about everything I can think of that I might want to do with a foot orthosis and because the software is not just for making orthotics I can also use it to design anything else I or anyone else may think of in the future: working on an anti-gravity teleportation system at the moment

If you want to be able to do it tomorrow then go for an off the shelf package from someone like ideas or amfit, but if you don't mind the challenge of having to learn something from scratch try googling: Solidworks (approx £6K); Nextengine (approx £1.5K); Roland MDX 40 (from about £4.5K) in comparison the ideas system comes in at about £20K

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Simon

What did you go for in the end? Are yo reverse engineering or taking scan data and manipulating?
Nice to see you have immersed yourself in the wonderfull world of CAD - now the fun really starts.

Phil

Phil, I use solidworks to both manipulate scanned data i.e., build orthoses from scratch, and obviously I am now able to reverse engineer also. Writing macro's to save design time is next on the to do list, but getting there slowly- took me a week to suss out heel skives!!!!!

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Hi Mark

I have used Amfit system for 8 years and am happy with the results. Its limitations for me are;

1 can only mill EVA. However the EVA is available in 3 durameters and the hardest seems to perform as well as rigid sheet thermoplastics for rigid control. I received fair number of sneery comments from my colleagues about this at first but my experience has been positive. When demands of Kirby skive" or similar non compressible high ORF design demand it I have had no problem. The durability of the devices is excellent and often surpases trad moulded POP devices because of being milled from single solid block, ie no glued joint lines to breakdown in forefoot.

2 doesn't take a truly accurate topographic image although it is pretty close. The digitiser uses a bladder to elevate measuring pins to a constant pressure, the effect of this is to produce an "edge effect" at outline of digitised image. However this seems to be a useful artifact because what happens is that the heel cup margins have a slight flare which compensates to a certain extent for marginal fibrofatty pad expansion if foot is scanned semi-weight bearing. There are several software options to modify the contour - some are useful eg adding medial/lateral forefoot/rear foot posts with definable margins, creating heel ramps and other global parameters such as forefoot thickness. Customisable segments can be inserted under the foot before digitising to create contour modifications, although fairly crude I find them useful particularly to create increased ORF at orthoses margins.

3 can only mill to total thickness of 3cms at heel. If you need a deep heel cup or high medial or lateral flange this is a pain. I have a workaround whereby using a band saw I cut a 5mm inset into the milled blank then glue a flexible heated band of 5mm EVA at the foot orthoses margins, this works well but adds a little extra fabrication time.

I am presently looking at creating a system of my own with a bit more versitility, there are lots of interesting milling machines around at good prices. I think the tough part is the digitisation process not for the faint hearted.

good luck - I can say without reservation that I will not go back to using POP again. Another thing I really like about the Amfit system is that the foot contour is captured with the ground a a reference point so that the alignment made at instant of pin locking captures the relative FF/RF and plantar foot /ground relationships. Also it is easy to plantar flex the 1st ray to ground level.

I have mostly received promt technical support for both digitiser and milling machine maintainance and repair.

If you have any further questions about my Amfit experience I'd be glad to discuss further.

I am not on comission from Amfit honest :)

cheers

Martin




The St. James Foot Clinic
1749 Portage Ave.
Winnipeg
Manitoba
R3J 0E6
phone [204] 837 FOOT (3668)
fax [204] 774 9918
www.winnipegfootclinic.com

Resuscitating an older thread...

I have recently acquired an AMFIT system- I actually chose this system because you can mill a positive cast and then vacuum form a shell orthosis.
I am a big fan of a shell orthosis- for various reasons- and have always made my own devices (estimate in the region of 5000 pair). When it came to choosing a system, the AMFIT seemed the one most likely to be able to produce something along the lines of what I have been making previously.
When it comes to milling the device, you use a high density modelling foam (from AMFIT) and simply tick a box 'mill positive'. The immediate limitation I found was that the model is too shallow, but I have found that you can add material post milling and then shape the arch if you need the extra depth.
So far I have been very happy with the results.
Occasionally I use the EVA insoles- especially if I need an immediate support- and they are excellent if you want to do any forefoot accomodations.
I would agree with Mart regarding the accuracy of the contour from the scanner. The modifications that you can make to the scan are a bit crude when it comes to the resultant milled positive- I think this is due to the mill head being relatively thick- but it is very easy to tidy up the cast with sand paper before pressing.

A quick question for Simon...
What sort of scan are you taking?? Is it NWB, WB or semi weight-bearing?
Are you milling the orthosis directly or making a positive and pressing (is that 'reverse engineering')?
Actually that is 2 questions... thanks

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Craig Tanner
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ASPETAR-
Qatar Orthopaedic and Sports Medicine Hospital
Doha
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Thanks for the info guys......sitting down this weekend with Solidworks Office Pro on trial. Can't think of anything better to do during the monsoon season.

Cheers again.

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I have just bought a nextengine laser scanner and am starting to explore the foot digitising and model manipulation process. Has anyone done any work evaluating the light distortion effects of scanning a weight bearing or semi weight bearing foot through the supporting surface and would care to share their thoughts on this?

cheers

Martin

The St. James Foot Clinic
1749 Portage Ave.
Winnipeg
Manitoba
R3J 0E6
phone [204] 837 FOOT (3668)
fax [204] 774 9918
www.winnipegfootclinic.com

At the moment I digitize plaster of paris casts, since like Kevin, I'm not interested in fixing something that isn't broken. Moreover, most of the guys I make devices for don't have scanners. I mill orthoses directly. Reverse engineering is taking an existing orthosis, scanning it in and changing it, i.e sizing to fit or manipulating it's geometry.

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