Scanning my poor little dog's elbow.

[alanbc]

I have a sweet little dog, a rescue, with a horrific past. She's happy now, and safe, but life can't seem to leave her alone.

She has recently been diagnosed with an auto-immune disease that has completely destroyed all the cartilage and ligaments in her lower front legs. Her paws are really like an empty sock.

Being an amazingly resilient creature, she learned to walk on her elbows! And did so for a year! But the callouses she developed wore through and she was walking around on BARE BONE for a day (or maybe more .. she never ever complains).

That's been treated and is even healing .. there's scabs over the wounds and hope that they will eventually heal.

Right now, I bandage her front paws with cotton balls and layers of cotton wrap so that she looks like she's wearing boxing gloves two sizes too big. This is not sustainable long term though.

My thought is to scan her elbow and the area around it, then 3d print something from that scan (likely modified) to provide some protection for her. A hard shell that hits the ground while soft "memory" foam is what her elbow feels.

Is this doable? Can I reasonably 3D scan a small dog's elbow with any accuracy? (She's the size of a cat .. 10 pounds or so.)

And if doable, is there anything to know about or consider in the choice of scanners? I don't have a 3d scanner, but for my little girl, I'll buy whatever might help her.

Thanks for any thoughts.

[greenskynet]

I had a similar case, but for a domestic cat.
Direct scanning of the foot, especially for animals with hair, does not give good results.
For this purpose, the best thing to do is to make a cast of the foot. Usually, resin casts and water-hardening resin bandages (used for splinting fractures) are available at the drugstore.

Cover the surface of the foot with a thin plastic sheet, and then make a cast of the foot. This way you can also control the pressure on the foot.

After the resin cast has hardened, remove it and scan its inner surface. Finally, make the necessary edits in the relevant software.

If you were near my city, I would help you with this.

[Micr0]

A number of companies make impressionable putties that you can use to take an imprint of the joint. Some of these are very soft epoxies with slow. Hardening, and you can get a fairly deep imprint. If the imprint is deep, you may not be able to scan it directly, and may have to cast a positive. It's a pretty straightforward process and shouldn't take you more than an hour or two.