Experimental Evaluation of Extended Reality Technologies in the Development of Individualized Three-Dimensionally Printed Upper Limb Prostheses

Abstract

Featured Application: The work presented in this paper will be applied in the process of design and the production of customized, low-cost upper limb prostheses, using the AutoMedPrint technology. The developed extended reality (XR) applications will be used for training and facilitating communication with customers. This paper presents results from experimental studies that assess the utilization of virtual, augmented, and mixed reality (VR, AR, MR) at different stages of developing personalized 3D printed upper limb prostheses for adult patients. The prostheses are designed automatically using the AutoMedPrint system, leveraging 3D scans as described in various prior publications. Various stages of development of the prosthesis are made as applications of different extended reality technologies. An assembly instruction is implemented as an immersive VR application, a configurator is designed as AR application and a configurator and try-on application is prepared and deployed in MR. The applications are tested by an international group of experts during a scheduled experiment. The experts then participate to surveys and comparatively evaluate the potential of all the XR technologies. The paper presents the development of these applications, provides a detailed account of the experimental process, including the rankings of XR technologies for different applications throughout the lifecycle of a prosthetic device.