This is the second in a series of articles about skull models created from CT scan data and designed to provide a low-cost means of anatomy teaching. To see my past article about the skull base model, click here.

Learning detailed anatomy is a grueling process that doctors, nurses, and other health science students must go through. Traditionally, learning anatomy involved detailed study of textbooks, but learning 3D structures from 2D pages just doesn't work well. Dissecting cadavers is the traditional means of teaching doctors, but this process is tedious, messy, very expensive, and only available in select educational institutions (i.e. med schools). Most students of anatomy do not have access to these resources.

3D printing is putting the power of real 3D anatomy within reach of ordinary students at very low cost. These models are created from highly detailed CT scan data from real human bodies, not an artist's conceptualization. This half skull and cervical spine has been cut along median sagittal plane. This clearly shows the external bony anatomy (zygomatic arch, orbit, etc.) as well as intracranial anatomy (skull base formina, paranasal sinuses, etc.). Bony details of the cervical spine are also clearly shown.

You can 3D print your own model by downloading the free files. These files are available on this website in STL or COLLADA format, in full size and half-size versions. You can get them here: full size (STL, COLLADA), half-size (STL, COLLADA). Check out more downloadable files in the File Vault.

If you would rather have a high quality model made for you, you can buy one from Shapeways here (full-size, half-size).

Feel free to modify the files as you would like, just please don't use them for commercial purposes. If you create something cool, please give back to the community by sharing it on the Embodi3d website in the File Vault.

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