https://phys.org/news/2018-05-d-technique-enables-faster-cheaper.html

"I nearly jumped out of my chair when I saw what this technology is able to do," says Beth Ripley, M.D. Ph.D., an Assistant Professor of Radiology at the University of Washington and clinical radiologist at the Seattle VA, and co-author of the paper. "It creates exquisitely detailed 3-D-printed medical models with a fraction of the manual labor currently required, making 3-D printing more accessible to the medical field as a tool for research and diagnosis."

Imaging technologies like MRI and CT scans produce high-resolution images as a series of "slices" that reveal the details of structures inside the human body, making them an invaluable resource for evaluating and diagnosing medical conditions. Most 3-D printers build physical models in a layer-by-layer process, so feeding them layers of medical images to create a solid structure is an obvious synergy between the two technologies.