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Introduction
Considering the deficit of anatomical corpse, increasingly more alternatives, such as plastic and silica gel models, are used to replace some multi-tissue specimens. However, these models are neither accurate in anatomical structure nor portable. Recently, three-dimensional (3D) printing (rapid prototyping, RP) has become popular and is widely used as a "rising" prototyping technology in areas, such as architecture (Gimenez et al. , 2015), medicine (Park et al. , 2015), cosmonautics (Kading and Straub, 2015) and so on. The principle of 3D printing is based on laying down successive individual layers or "Layer-by-layer" deposition. Thus, it can be used by cutting a virtual model into slices with closed curves in a horizontal plane. Then, printing material (filament or liquid) is stacked up and integrated (fused) into a real model. Two main methods of 3D printing are classified according the method of shaping of every slice: fused deposition modeling (FDM) and stereolithography (SLA). The former is rapid in shaping but poor in accuracy and is unstable in slice-printing, which is described as "drifting". Distortion, even failure, may be caused by this disadvantage, whereas the latter approach, despite the lower printing speed, has high accuracy and does not manifest the "drifting" phenomenon.
Medical RP is based on iconography; thus, at first, serial images from computerized tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging, B-type ultrasonic equipment which is performed for bone assessment (Kaufman et al. , 2004), etc., should be obtained. Second, a proper segmentation algorithm or software should be used that is applicable in a short time and with high accuracy. Finally, an accurate 3D model with less bugs could be obtained in a shorter time and with the help of a software.
With the development of medical education and the deficit of corpse, 3D printing models are becoming increasingly popular in the medical domain as eidetic replacements produced through the use of CT images (McMenamin et al. , 2014). Meanwhile, the requirements for the accuracy and resolution of 3D printing are strict. Multi-tissue and multi-structure models are acceptable in medical education and clinical research. The research in this paper was focused on evaluating the accuracy of a multi-structure model (hand bones and an additional artery).
Materials and methods
Materials
One human hand specimen with muscle, blood vessels and...