As a Research and Innovation Engineer at LimaCorporate (now Enovis), a global medical device company, I have developed Figura™, a system for research and development of orthopedic implants consisting of three components:
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Bone database – hundreds of anonymized CT image sets and more than 2,400 3D bone models.
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Open source-based library – which leverages machine learning, statistical shape modelling (SSM), and optimization techniques to automate time-consuming and otherwise expensive tasks, for instance:
- mapping elastic properties derived from computed tomography images to a bone finite element mesh (QCT-FEA),
- inner cortical segmentations (cortical bone mapping),
- bone morphometric analyses (femur, humerus, scapula, talus, tibia, and ulna).
The library is mainly written in Python, and leverages also Scala for SSM, and HTML/CSS for the documentation. Procedural, object-oriented, and functional programming paradigms are used throughout the codebase. It is version controlled using Git and stored in Azure DevOps repositories where I have implemented CI/CD pipelines for testing and linting.
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CAD plug-ins – to automate virtual surgeries and bone reconstructions within the CAD environment.
The system empowers product development engineers with data and tools to make their design activities more effective and efficient. Furthermore, the tool was used and cited in a peer-reviewed research article published in the Journal of Orthopaedic Research (Q1) and in projects presented at orthopaedic conferences, such as the ISTA.
Moreover, I have developed several graphical user interfaces (GUIs) that leverage Figura, as well as PyQt5, PyQtGraph, and PyVista libraries, for processing, visualizing, and interacting with complex 2D and 3D data. I have bundled these GUIs and released them to my colleagues at work to facilitate their day-to-day engineering activities. In particular, three GUIs stand out:
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Figura-UI – the first ever application built on top of Figura in 2020 (when the system was internally known as IgeApp). It allows product development engineers to independently perform various analyses, such as QCT-FEA, micromotions and bone remodeling as well as segmentation of the inner cortical bone.
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Figura Landmarks UI – an application to easily and automatically compute bone landmarks.
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Figura ProMade Planner – an application specifically designed by and for the ProMade engineers (patient-specific implant development).
QCT-FEA. Humerus elastic modulus map.
Morphometric analysis. Femur diaphysis.
Cortical bone mapping. Femur cortical thickness.