The development of computer-aided patient-specific template design software for 3D printing in cranio-maxillofacial surgery.

Background: The patient-specific templates for osteotomy often have complex surface features. Using current commercial software to design such templates is quite complicated, tedious and unrepeatable.

Aims: In this study, a novel surgical planning system for oral and maxillofacial surgery named EasyTemplate is developed, aiming to help doctors shorten the modelling time and assure the reliability in template design.

Materials & Methods: In the simplified design process of an osteotomy guide, the main template can be formed efficiently using a surface offsetting algorithm, which is based on isosurface extraction and oriented bounding box. Thereafter, the cutting grooves can be generated automatically.

Results: A complicated surgical guide could be built accurately in about 10 min. Clinical orthognathic cases were conducted successfully using osteotomy and repositioning templates designed by EasyTemplate.

Discussion: Compared with commercially available softwares, higher efficiency and simpler design process were achieved, moreover, the time cost is one-third or even less.

Conclusion: EasyTemplate can be a useful alternative to traditional softwares. This software allows the auto-generation algorithm which helps avoid a tedious modeling process while providing basic shapes for designers.