Duna Srl is a global company headquartered in Falconara, Italy that specializes in the production of general purpose and prescription orthotic footwear. The company manufactures a complete line of adult and kids off-the-shelf footwear products as well as custom footwear for patients who suffer from a range of mobility handicaps including sensory diabetic neuropathy (diabetic foot nerve damage), foot ulcers, peripheral vascular disease, birth defects and other injuries and deformities of the feet.
Duna has developed a complete orthopedic insole design and production system (hardware and software) with retail 3rd party manufacturing and sales outlets located across Italy, Europe, China and Thailand!
Click Here to watch the Duna Orthotic 3 Axis Machining Center
in action cutting RhinoCAM toolpaths!
Duna has developed a CAD application that runs as a plugin to the Rhinoceros CAD system called Insole Designer. The CAD program expedites the process of insole design using knowledge bases, templates and specialized Rhino utilities. The CAD software’s end result is a complete 3D nurbs polysurface model of the exact insoles ready to be housed inside the final shoe. The CAM software that Duna chose for their insole design and production system is RhinoCAM from MecSoft Corporation!
Raffaele Ieluzzi has a Masters Degree in Biomedical Engineering and is the Technology Development Manager for Duna Orthopedic Shoes. We recently sat down with Raffaele to discuss Insole Designer and see why they chose to integrate RhinoCAM into their orthotic production system.
Here is a sample of what Raffaele had to say about RhinoCAM:
“We are very happy with the integration of RhinoCAM into our orthopedic insole production system. Because Insole Designer is highly customizable, we like how RhinoCAM provides access to every cut parameter and stores those parameters into a knowledge base. The milling strategies in RhinoCAM automatically adapt to any shape produced by Insole Designer. Because the two plugins work together seamlessly inside of Rhinoceros our users eliminate file translation errors and inaccuracies, resulting in the best fit for the patient and customer.” Raffaele Ieluzzi, Technology Development Manager Duna Orthopedic Shoes, Falconara, Italy |
More about Insole Designer
Insole Designer uses integrated insole databases and templates coupled with an assortment of specialized tools and utilities to facilitate the creation of the customer’s or patient’s prescribed insoles. The integrated Rhino plugin creates a complete and accurate 3D nurbs polysurface model. Unlike other insole programs, Insole Designer develops the complete contoured insole top and bottom. The top fits the patient foot scan while the bottom and outer profile fits Duna’s orthopedic shoe production. The result is a complete and custom fit for the patient using the least amount of added insole material. The profile view of a 3D nurbs polysurface insole created by Insole Designer is shown below. Notice the thin sculptured contoured top and bottom.
The Machine & Setup
The Duna system is an integrated set of hardware and software tools designed to work together for the quick, consistent and accurate design and production of orthopedic insoles. The hardware consists of a compact 3 Axis CNC Machining center with vacuum table and fixture that accepts Duna’s standard EVA foam stock material measuring 350 x 260 x 30 mm. Also included with the Duna system is a 3D scanner and software that integrates custom STL scanned point data directly into Insole Designer.
In RhinoCAM the Machine is set to 3 Axis with all coordinates output to the local setup coordinate system. Insole Designer creates the 3D nurbs polysurface model positioned to scale and as machined with both the WCS (World Coordinate System) and MCS (Machine Coordinate System) located at the bottom center of the stock definition. The post is set to Duna’s customized RhinoCAM post-processor that outputs standard ISO G-Code in the format that is optimized for this 3 Axis CNC machine. The 3D insole model, stock and coordinate systems are shown in Rhino below. RhinoCAM’s Machining Browser on the left shows the toolpath strategies and tool library loaded from the Duna RhinoCAM Knowledge Base.
The RhinoCAM Toolpaths
RhinoCAM handles all toolpath generation and G-Code output for Insole Designer. Duna’s RhinoCAM toolpath Knowledge Base is loaded and the required toolpath strategies are applied. Since Insole Designer creates the 3D nurbs polysurface model to the exact scale and coordinate location required, a consistent CAM programming procedure is established. In RhinoCAM, the Machine, Post, Stock size and Alignment are all the same for every insole.
On the left we see the cut material simulation of the 2 Axis Profiling toolpath. It follows on the outside of the upper outer perimeter nurbs curve (shown in dark orange) of both the right and left insole. The cut parameters produce a single pass at the base of the stock material (shown in dark blue). On the right we see the completed insoles cut material simulation after the three toolpaths are complete. |
The completed custom orthotic insoles from Insole Designer and RhinoCAM at Duna srl. |
More about Duna Orthopedic Shoes
Duna Srl is a global company that offers off-the-shelf and Individual footwear orthotics design, manufacturing, materials, technology products (hardware and software) and services dedicated to the Orthotic footwear market. TCO – Technological Customized Orthosis – is the innovative measure-to-manufacturing production process developed by Duna’s Innovation & Technology to innovate all the operating phases that contribute to the manufacturing of orthopaedic custom- made insoles Duna offers the following hardware and software orthotic diagnostic tools.
FootWizard® Ortho FootScan 2 FootWizard® Insole | FootWizard® Custom 3 Axis Milling Machines INERTIAL SYSTEM | TCO Insole designer PRESSURE PLATFORMS | 3D DigiPlan Last Designer |
To learn more about Duna srl and the software and systems they offer we invite you to contact them at [email protected] or visit them online at www.duna.it/en.
Read the complete case study here!