Soletec CADCAM system

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I see that Soletec have entered the UK market selling a system that can be purchased in its entirety.

Any of our American friends have any experience of the system and its limitiations/benfits?

Seems to market itself on being a completely bespoke system - ie no libraries. However, as it is possible to have a set of digital callipers to take measures, I'm not sure how library free that is. Does it matter whether the library is of the foot or the orthosis? It's still not completely bespoke. That being said, does it matter?

Be interested to hear any comments. Phil Wells?

robi

 

Robin
I do know of this company but will keep my personal comments about them private - litigation etc.
I am pretty sure that this system uses Delcam software as it base (Or did) and claims no user input required and to be totally bespoke - it then goes on to mention key anatomical landmarks/points that are used to create the insole?????
I do know that Craig Tanner has had a demo from them in the past - worth getting his comments if around.

I have now been using CAD for about 9 years and have reached the conclusion that it is impossible to automate orthoses design fully - there is approx 40% of orthoses that will always require the person more than the computer to create an acceptable device.
The ability to have freehand control over some of the process is always going to be the key question to ask if you are thinking of buying a system.

Cheers

Phil

 

Well, they are up front about their limitations.

"The foot digitizer meets the market demands for a low cost piece of equipment with a quality image capture in a relatively short scanning time. It has a vision area of 160 x 120 mm and a scanning area of 400 mm. The foot is scanned in 8 s. and the output file is in ASCII format containing X, Y and Zcoordinates arranged in vertical sections parallel to each other with an accuracy to the nearest 1 mm."

Slow and not as accurate as other systems (My words)

"The whole digitizing and output file generation process may take approx. 30 s. and the file size ranges from 500 to 700 K. The system incorporates automatic filtering and editing options (noise elimination)."

"It is one of the cheapest automated scanners. The cheapest scanners always require a continuous link with the operator and an additional cost derived for each digitization made. Soletecs scanner is supplied in this way to the market."

Do I hear warning bells?...continuous link....additional cost.



"3D software for insole design – SOLETEC (CAD) Automation Sofware (ST063 and ST064)
The system for insole design enables the ‘full’ automation ‘fast’ design (ST063) and milling (ST064) of a 3D insole – in less than 2 min starting from a set of 10-12 parameters obtained from foot digitization or foot measurements, as shown in Figure 4.
This process r relieves the operator from designing (by hand) a tailored insole. All competitor software relies on a manual input into the design process – Soletec Automation software removes this need immediately. The designed insole can also be subsequently machined using the SOLETEC (CAM) automation software package without any manual input."

"Both systems have been developed to speed up the process of manufacturing a tailored insole ................................................................................when manufacturing ‘FULL’ bespoke insoles."

 

Gaittec,

Yes, hardly inspiring is it.

Phil,

thanks for that. No intentionof doing anything like that yet. I saw it at some event and I was curious to know if anyone knew a bit more about it.

Believe me, if I am in the market for that type of thing, I will be making the phonecall to ask your advice first. As I am sure many others would. The price of being too good huh Phil?

 

Robin

I really hope that software designers see the stuff we write and realise that the way forward is to get a flexible CAD system out to the practitioners who want it ASAP. Keep it low cost or cost per use (Click fee) then we can all take control of our own designs.
I get annoyed by the marketing hype of some companies and can't help getting on my soap box!!

Going for a lie down.

Cheers

Phil

 

What areas would you like to see in terms of flexibility? There are plenty of free CAD software packages out there? Do you need a CAD package tailored to pods only? What would that mean in terms of specific requirements?

Please discuss!!

 

What I would like to see is a system that mimics the methods historically used to enable the process to become digital. What often happens is that the practitioner must learn the software's way of doing things and take lots of things at face value - e.g. what assumptions are made about the cast/digital image.
Lets keep things simple and allow the practitioner to assess the 'cast', dress the 'cast', add cast mods such as skives etc and create THEIR positive using intuitive tools. Then a virtual draping of the material followed by prescription additions done in a way that the practitioner can recognise.
This then becomes a 'work flow' that is exactly the same as by hand only in a digital format.

There are a lot of software packages available that just need a clinical GUI rather than the standard engineer/designer interface.
Make it quick and low cost so that it can be rolled out to anyone who wants it and allow for easy milling either by their own system or by out sourcing.
As a lab manager I would be more than happy to hand over design to the clinician and just offer support and then mill and finish the orthoses at a lower price.

Hope this makes sense Brahim

Cheers
Phil

 

Thanks for the comment Phil, I too am interested in advancing the application of digital automation to the orthotic prescription/fabrication process.

One of the hypotheses I am leaning on is that the cast itself is no longer an essential piece in the workflow. The cast stores 2 main categories of information. 1. the forefoot to rearfoot relationship. 2. The anatomical landmarks of the foot.

The third category of information needed to make an orthosis is the design of the orthosis and features.

The hypothesis assumes that at minimum, the forefoot to rearfoot relationship can be captured through palpation and measurement thereby eliminating the cast. The information could be recorded manually in an online form. From there you have the basis for a prescription if there is a supporting algorithm that can produce correction based on the observations of the practitioner.

The anatomical landmarks could be captured using digital imaging technology.

Where your comments really piqued my interest is in the placement of the prescription into the correct locations of the foot. I again hypothesize that the prescription could be visually mapped to the plantar surface, thus engaging the practitioner in the specific placement of prescription wedging exactly where the practitioner wanted (or leave it to competency of the lab to do if that were the preference). Imagine mapping wedges directly to a digital plantar representation of the foot.

Once the mapping is complete, the remaining materials and configurations selections could be driven by additional forms in the workflow. The final representation of the orthosis could be reviewed in a rotatable 3D model viewable in the same online interface as the rest of the workflow.

I too hope that this makes sense.

I recognize that this is a departure from conventional orthotic processes, but I propose that this is better. Could this work? Is it sufficient? What is insufficient? What other considerations should be made in envisioning a better system?


Please discuss!!

 

Supplying a complete solution to a practitioner is actually old hat. Most, even though they're made aware that the software is fully capable of allowing them to design an orthotic will simply enter a prescription, scan the patient's feet, and transmit the data to the lab for processing. From a cost benefit analysis, it makes sense. They make more money seeing patients.


The ability to move a system from one site to another seamlessly is actually of higher priority. More often than not, a podiatrist has multiple offices and would rather not have multiple systems. A few months back, for my own network the technical support is plug-n-play for most types of networks for both data transmission and technical support. From an actual mobility point of view, that's going to also be solved in the next couple of weeks and will likely cost less to manufacture than the scanning desktop system.

 

This is basically what I do to design an orthosis in Solidworks. I'm sure there are quicker and easier ways to do it. But, I know lots about foot orthosis and feet, I have very little interest in algorithms and computer geeky things.

Having used several different CAD modelling programmes I actually think Solidworks has the greatest potential, what it really needs is someone to sit and work out how to make orthoses on it, that knows what they are doing with it. I only really play and I'm self-taught. Then a "how to make foot orthoses using Solidworks manual" needs to be written.