Dr. Casey Kerrigan is a Harvard Medical School graduate with a masters degree in Kinesiology (the study of body movement). Dr. Kerrigan is known internationally for her peer-reviewed published research on gait (the study of walking & running) and the effects of footwear on the joints in the body. She published her first research paper in 1998 demonstrating a link between high heels and knee arthritis. She subsequently discovered that even a small heel elevation as well as a lot of other features in traditional shoes, similarly increase impact on the joints.
Casey’s research, along with her years of clinical experience treating the wide variety of problems linked to poor footwear, led her to develop and launch OESH Shoes in Charlottesville VA where she and her team designs and manufactures her footwear with the help of VisualMILL from MecSoft Corporation. We recently sat down with Dr. Kerrigan to discuss her remarkable contributions to the footwear industry and her use of our VisualMILL software.
OESH & VisualMILL
In 2009 Casey was the first woman tenured professor and chair of the department of physical medicine and rehabilitation (PM&R) at the University of Virginia (UVA). Casey was also professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering when she left UVA to concentrate full time on footwear development. When it came time to prototype her footwear sole designs, Casey taught herself CAD/CAM, purchased a Supra 3 Axis vertical mill from CNC Masters who highly recommended that she take a look at VisualMILL from MecSoft Corporation to generate the 3 Axis CAM toolpaths she would need to machine the sole design molds her footwear required!
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 “VisualMILL is easy to learn and easy to use! I self-taught myself how to use the program from the MecSoft training videos. I’ve also trained two apprentices to use the software and neither one of them has had any trouble learning it.”
Dr. Casey Kerrigan, Founder & President |
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| OESH Shoes developed their footwear prototype molds using VisualMILL CNC Software from MecSoft Corporation. Here we see the OESH La Vida shoe design and mold plate. | |
VisualMILL helps OESH design their 3D Printers!
Dr. Kerrigan has also developed her own production 3D printers that OESH uses to produce the soles for their line of 3D printed sandals. With a grant from the National Science Foundation Casey was able to refine the development of the thermoplastic extruder that her 3D printers required.
Casey also taught her apprentice Maggie Rogers how to use VisualMILL! Maggie is a recent UVA graduate, designer and fabrication specialist with OESH. Maggie assists in the development of the company’s 3D printer extruder designs using Fusion 360. All of the g-code required to machine the design components were generated in VisualMILL using 2, 3 and 4 Axis toolpath strategies.
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| (Left) Dr. Casey Kerrigan inspects the bulk thermoplastic pellets used by the OESH 3D printers also shown. (Right) The OESH Athena 3D printed sandal in Poppy White. |
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Here is what Maggie Rogers had to say about VisualMILL:
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“With the VisualMill program and our CNC milling machine I can quickly and easily machine new components for our 3D printers. We machine almost all the parts of our 3D printers right here in our Charlottesville factory, so development can go very fast and we can be constantly improving our shoe printing processes.”
Maggie Rogers, Design & Fabrication |
Here we see VisualCAD/CAM with the VisualMILL plugin loaded. (Center) The Thermoplastic Heater Block 3D model is loaded and one of the 2½ Axis Profiling toolpaths is shown with the cutting tool displayed. (Left) Here we see the VisualMILL Machining Browser showing the Machining Job and the Toolpath Editor to the right. (Right) In the bottom right we see the cut material simulation for the 2½ Axis Chamfering operation. In the top right we see the actual component machined from 6061 aluminum.
More about OESH Shoes
We want to thank Dr. Casey Kerrigan and Maggie Rogers for their time and contributions to this article. For more information about Dr. Casey Kerrigan’s research and OESH Shoes we invite you to check out the following web links:
- The Dream Flat by OESH
- OESH Shoes online, Facebook and Twitter.
- Dr. Casey Kerrigan appears in the ABC 20/20 television program.
- More about Dr. Casey Kerrigan.
More about CNC Masters
To learn more about the great team at CNC Masters and the Supra 3 Axis vertical mill we invite you to visit them online at their website, Facebook and Twitter.