Metamason CPAP Mask

Metamason was one of the most exciting projects I ever worked on. As far as I know it was the first self generating on demand consumer products ever created.

The product was a CPAP mask used for treating sleep apnea which is a disorder affecting an estimated 22 million people in the US alone. Sleep apnea is treated with a mask or nasal pillow that delivers pressurized air to a patient while they sleep. Over 33% of patients go off treatment due to the poor fit associated with CPAP masks. This is not surprising. Everyone’s nose is dramatically different and Small/Medium/Large fit options simply don't work when trying to get a comfortable air-tight fit on a patients nose.

The Metamason mask used an off the shelf 3D scanning solution to generate a computer model of a patients face. This data was then run through an automated processing pipeline to create a custom fit mask for a patient.

Designing the automated pipeline was extremely challenging and exciting. As I said, it hadn't been done before so every problem and solution were new and groundbreaking. By the end we had successfully made a system that could take in scan data and facial landmarks supplied by the scanner and, using a bone driven deformation of basic mask geometry, generate a completely custom mask tool for casting a mask out of medical grade silicone.