School of Engineering (SoE) Industrial Visit to SIRIM Sdn Bhd

For nearly five years, SIRIM has provided surgeons with the likes of 3D Biomodelling services. Every titanium plate produced at the Biomodelling Centre in Bukit Jalil is delicately knocked, bent and sculpted into shape by hand, allowing surgeons to plan their surgeries with greater precision than ever before. The patient’s X-ray computed tomography (CT) scans gives SIRIM’s Biomodelling technicians a geometrical map of the trauma site and helps them build a model of what the skull should look like, although it takes quite a bit of work to go from x-ray to the actual biomodel. Fortunately, three-dimensional imaging and rapid prototyping technologies now allow us to ‘print’ 3D models of patients’ skulls from CT and MRI scans, so that surgeons can test titanium implants and make the most detailed revisions and corrections to them before the actual surgery takes place.

On Friday, April 25, 2014, around 30 students and staff visited SIRIM, Bukit Jalil to witness the 3D modeling and printing technology.