Mason Thomas, 8, was presented with a 3-D model of his heart that was 3D printed in the form of a Tie Fighter from Star Wars--a special request from the young Star Wars fan on September 11, 2019 ...

These heart models were made with a 3D printer. The smaller one is based on scans of an infant with congenital heart disease and the larger is a post-op model from a 13 year old with the disease.

Good news, because [Jacob] of Painted4Combat shared a tool he created to make 3D models meant for resin printers — the kind popular with tabletop gamers — easier to port to FDM.

Asked whether this model brought the scientists closer to making a 3D heart that could be transplanted into patients, Mr Rosalia told DailyMail.com that was the case.

Engineers developed a procedure to 3D print a soft and flexible replica of a patient's heart. These models could help doctors tailor treatments, such as aortic valves, to an individual patient.

Iaizzo's lab can scan a patient's diseased or damaged heart, and create a 3D model of that. Once surgery is completed, doctors can scan the heart again, and print out a replica of the repaired organ.

When these AI-created patterns were applied to 3D heart models and tested against various ablation approaches, the resulting predictions proved nearly as reliable as those using genuine patient data.