Italian company WASP, widely known for its development of 3D printing to produce a variety of prototype concrete structures, has developed a 3D printing process that customises coronavirus protection masks.
By 3D-scanning an individual face, and using the material PCL (polycaprolactone), a biomaterial that can be used for direct skin contact, a perfectly-fitting mask can be created in four hours.
The company says: “Our goal was to make the mask perfectly ergonomic, following the facial features as a second skin, a result that we obtained using Blender CAD-modelling software. ‘My face mask’ can be easily sanitised and reused many times, as the central part features a replaceable filter. Because it only takes about four hours to customise a perfectly fit face mask, this reduces skin irritation and long-use related issues.”
WASP has released the project in open source, with instructions and the .stl files ready to be downloaded from the link below.
https://www.3dwasp.com/en/3d-printed-mask-from-3d-scanning/
All the masks were printed using Delta WASP 4070 IND. 4.0.
