Integrated approach to design and manufacture of shoe lasts for orthopaedic use

For commercial shoes as well as custom-made shoes, the shoe last-a solid model of the inner volume of the shoe-is unquestionably the single most important component of the fabrication process. This paper introduces the elements of an integrated CAD/CAM system to digitize the foot, use a graphics sub-system to create the geometry of a last from the foot model, and generate the tool cutter paths for a numerical control machine to cut the last. Issues of integration of design data and manufacturing data, and problems related to the operation of the sytem are discussed in this paper.