US 7,050,876 B1 · Manufacturing methods and systems for rapid production of hearing-aid shells

Abstract

Methods, apparatus and computer program products provide efficient techniques for designing and printing shells of hearing-aid devices with a high degree of quality assurance and reliability and with a reduced number of manual and time consuming production steps and operations. These techniques also preferably provide hearing-aid shells having internal volumes that can approach a maximum allowable ratio of internal volume relative to external volume. These high internal volumes facilitate the inclusion of hearing-aid electrical components having higher degrees of functionality and/or the use of smaller and less conspicuous hearing-aid shells. A preferred method includes operations to generate a watertight digital model of a hearing-aid shell by thickening a three-dimensional digital model of a shell surface in a manner that eliminates self-intersections and results in a thickened model having an internal volume that is a high percentage of an external volume of the model. This thickening operation preferably includes nonuniformly thickening the digital model of a shell surface about a directed path that identifies a location of an undersurface hearing-aid vent. This directed path may be drawn on the shell surface by a technician (e.g., audiologist) or computer-aided design operator, for example. Operations are then preferably performed to generate a digital model of an undersurface hearing-aid vent in the thickened model of the shell surface, at a location proximate the directed path.

Claims80

Dependent claims

A method of manufacturing a hearing-aid shell, comprising the steps of:

nonuniformly thickening a three-dimensional digital model of a shell surface about a directed path thereon to define a thickened model;
and
generating an undersurface hearing-aid vent in the thickened model of the shell surface, at a location proximate the directed path.

An automated hearing-aid shell manufacturing system, comprising:

a scanning tool that generates point cloud data describing a shape of at least a portion of an ear canal of a subject, from the ear canal of the subject or an impression of the ear canal of the subject;
and
a computer-aided design tool that is communicatively coupled to said scanning tool, said computer-aided design tool comprising:
a display;
and
a computer system communicatively coupled to said display, said computer system comprising a processor and a computer program product readable by the processor and tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the processor to perform the method steps of:
generating a first digital model of at least a portion of the ear canal of the subject from the point cloud data;
aligning a digital template of a hearing-aid shell with the first digital model;
and
generating a three-dimensional model of a hearing-aid shell surface by modifying a shape of the digital template to more closely conform to a shape of the first digital model and/or modifying the shape of the first digital model to more closely conform to the shape of the digital template.

7 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Manufacturing methods and systems for rapid production of hearing-aid shells

Life of this patent

Manufacturing methods and systems for rapid production of hearing-aid shells

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims80