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Dear 3D whisperers I´m a vet and at the moment we are treating a cat that lost its rear paws for unknown circumstances. We took a CT scan of its body and some X-rays too, the problem is that the mesh generated (right tibia and fibula) does not seem to be matching the size of the images of the X-rays, even though the difference is minimal, the mesh it is bigger and thicker as you can tell in the images provided. Is this something normal? Which one is more accurate, the X-ray or the CT scan mesh? I used Slicer to generate the mesh from the DICOM files. Kindest Regards Johnny

UPDATED TUTORIAL: A Ridiculously Easily Way to Convert CT Scans to 3D Printable Bone STL Models for Free in Minutes Hello and welcome back. I hope you enjoyed my last tutorial on creating 3D printable medical models using free software on Macintosh computers. In this brief video tutorial I'll show you how to create a 3D printable skull STL file from a CT scan in FIVE minutes using only free and open source software. In the video I use a program called 3D Slicer, which is available from slicer.org. 3D Slicer works on Windows, Macintosh, and Linux operating systems. Also, I use Blender, which is available from blender.org, to perform some mesh cleanup. Finally, I check my model prior to 3D printing using Meshmixer from Autodesk. This is available at meshmixer.com. All software programs are free. If you like this, view my complete tutorial where I go through each step shown here in detail. I hope you enjoy the video.

Here is a message I recently received. I am posting my reply in hopes it will help others. ------------------------------------------- QUESTION: My name is ___________ and I am a student at the University of Missouri, attempting to print 3D images from CT scans. I have found your video extremely helpful and had a question if you don't mind about blender. My question is that lets say I want just the left half of the skull. How can I cut the skull down the middle, select the right side and delete. I have tried to find Blender YouTube tutorials about this but none of them have been helpful. It would be great if I could get your opinion on the matter. Would that be possible? Thank you so much for your time! Truly enjoyed the tutorial a lot! -------------------------------------------- ANSWER: The best way is to subtract the side you don't want by using a boolean operator. Start by creating basic shape, such as a cube, and scale it up so that it is bigger than the skull. Then, position the cube over the portion of the skull you want deleted. Then, with the skull selected, select the boolean modifier, choose difference, and the target should be the cube. Everthing that intersects with the cube should be gone. Be sure to accept the changes the modifier made. Good luck!