Medical Image-Based Medical 3D Printing Modeling
Approval of International Standards for the Development of Customized Medical Equipment
Automatically segment and analyze video precisely using AI


The Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) announced on the 28th that two new international standards proposed for medical image-based medical 3D printing modeling were finally approved at the WG12 '3D Printing and Scanning' working group meeting under the International Organization for Standardization (ISO/IEC) JTC1 on the 25th of last month.

The adopted standardization items include the requirements for producing medical 3D printer prostheses based on CT images and orbital images, as well as the segmentation procedures for each human tissue required during the production process.

Medical 3D printing is a technology that uses medical image information from a patient to produce surgical medical devices, implantable medical devices, and pre-simulation devices tailored to the patient.

Until now, preparing medical equipment tailored to a patient's condition required the creation of printed models by hand. This was due to the difficulty of clearly identifying tissue areas in images. The long production time posed significant constraints in urgent situations, and the lack of standards made it difficult to utilize data from other medical professionals.

The research team has begun developing standards for automating the process of creating 3D printing models using deep learning. In particular, it includes AI-based automation of the "segmentation" process, which is crucial for creating specific human tissue models from medical images. Experts from the U.S. FDA, the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), and DICOM are also expected to participate in the standardization effort.

ETRI stated that it was able to achieve this result through collaboration with Professor Shim Kyu-won of Yonsei University and Professor Hong Helen of Seoul Women's University, led by ETRI Senior Researcher Jeon Jong-hong, starting in 2018.

The joint research team plans to apply deep learning technology to '3D reconstruction' and '3D format conversion' in the future to create additional international standards to enable precise automatic modeling without distortion or loss.

ETRI explained that through this achievement, it plans to collect additional opinions from industry, academia, and research institutes related to domestic medical AI and medical 3D printing and reflect them in ways to resolve technical issues.

Meanwhile, Working Group (WG) 12, which approved this standardization item, was established by ETRI in August 2018, and is working on international standardization in the medical field in cooperation with domestic and international experts, with ETRI's Dr. Lee Byeong-nam as its chairman.