A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Engineering, School of Advanced Technologies

Thesis (M.Eng.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2001

Although various techniques have been used for making implants, personalized implants are high in cost. Complex design and manufacturing technology, long design and manufacturing time and intensive labor use are high in cost. Materials are also very costly. For countries with limited resources and low income, the cost of the implants is the most important factor that needs to be taken into account. Sometime cost overrides the standard selection criteria of production method and materials in both technical and clinical point of views. That inspired us to investigate the feasible technical solutions to make cranioplasty implants for the ASEAN region with acceptable cost. This research is part of a project conducted at AIT to investigate the algorithm for constructing the skull template, especially for the case of Vietnamese people. This skull template is used for construction of the design-aided database and geometrical modeling of the standardized cranioplasty implants. The resulting template then be used for implant design.