Imagine a trade fair that is spread across 17 exhibitions halls, each the size of a football field, that has more than 5,000 companies clamouring for your attention, and you are one of more than 100,000 potential customers. That trade fair is Medica. Each year, for the past 25 years, the trade fair has been held in the German city of Düsseldorf, located on the River Rhine and best known for its academy of fine arts. In the middle of November, the city comes alive, the hotel prices quadruple, and the world’s medical device industry descends on the Westphalia region.

This year marks CapeRay’s debut at Medica. From 16 to 19 November we will be located in Hall 17, on Stand D82, and setting up our exhibit under the umbrella of CBI (the Dutch acronym for “Centrum tot Bevordering van de Import uit ontwikkelingslanden”). CBI is an initiative of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs that has been designed to assist companies from developing countries to export their products to the European Union.

When CapeRay signed up for Medica, we gave careful consideration to what we would actually be exhibiting. The first product we have chosen to showcase is the PantoScanner, our revolutionary new mammography platform that has been designed to combine digital X-ray technology with automated breast ultrasound. Given the size of our PantoScanner, plus the logistics of transporting it to and from Germany, we decided instead to build a one-third scale model of the platform.

CapeRay engaged the services of master model builder Marc Farham whose company Communicraft has extensive experience in the design and fabrication of working models. As seen in the video below, our miniature PantoScanner mimics three key movements of a modern mammography system: vertical translation to accommodate women of different heights; rotation to acquire medio-lateral oblique views of the left and right breasts; and rotation to implement digital breast tomosynthesis.

CapeRay’s other product is a state-of-the-art digital X-ray camera called the Pandia – named after the Greek goddess of brightness – that boasts impressive statistics. The Pandia has been designed for scanning applications, including mammography, dental imaging, bone density, and, in an industrial setting, non-destructive testing. PantoScanner and Pandia: what a combination!