Preliminary Experience witb Selective Laser Sintigrapbic (SLS) Models of tbe Human Temporal Bone

Materials and Methoqs Thin section CT of a left human cadaveric temporal bone was performed using multiple scan planes (axial, coronal, sagittal) at 1.5 mm slice thickness, 0.25 mm pixel size with an edge enhancement 2D algorithm. CT data was converted to toggle point format based upon a threshold value of 200 obtained from prior experimentation with a CT phantom (unpublished data). Selective Laser Sintering of polycarbonate powder was performed at a beam thickness of 0.060 inches, 100 scan lines/inch, layer thickness of 0.010 inches, and layer repeat factor of 4. The polycarbonate models were then scanned in the axial, coronal and sagittal planes and compared with the original CT data. Anatomic dissection of the models was performed for further verification of the imaging findings.