Description
Three-dimensional (3D) printing is commonly associated with rapid prototyping. Here, we extend 3D printing as a tool to validate a digital methodology of taking ear canal impressions for hearing aids. The central research question that this work addresses is whether external scanners can be adapted to scan human ear canals accurately and efficiently for hearing aid fitting. A comparison of different contactless scanning technologies determined that structured light scanning is the best suited technology to be adapted into a contactless ear scanning methodology. Furthermore, we show that this method of scanning ears directly, without taking an impression, reduces ground transportation and therefore lowers the global warming potential.
