This week's OMTEC (Orthopaedic Manufacturing and Technology Expo) 2012 event, being held right now in Chicago, opened yesterday with a review by industry leaders of the state of the industry. With more than 400 assembled orthopedic industry professionals in attendance, 90 exhibitors and dozens of educational seminars, this is a highly visible event for technology relating to orthopedic product design and manufacture.
So, of course, Geomagic is in attendance showing off its Freeform touch-enabled design and simulation solutions, but this year with a bonus:- Level 3 Inspection has joined Geomagic at the event. Level 3 is showing off its fully-automated Computer-Aided Inspection system which works with Geomagic Qualify to deliver closed loop, automated scanning, measurement, inspection and reporting for manufactured parts. Known as the Smart Inspection Station™, or SiS, it uses very high resolution Structured Light Metrology to digitize one-to-several parts and compare those parts to the CAD model and BluePrint digital product definition in mere minutes from a bar-code scan by a non-technical operator. (See below for images of the Smart Inspection System by Level 3.)
Geomagic's Freeform solutions with Sensable Haptic devices use touch-enabled design solutions that are used by medical designers and researchers to develop new orthopedic devices but as importantly to deliver surgical simulator tools - like a pilot in a flight simulator, the haptic-enabled solutions give surgeons realistic practice time on a pending operation before they are in a live environment. (Image left: a touch-enabled simulator for veterinarian training.)
(Image below: The Smart Inspection System at OMTEC 2012.)
