3-D Dental Measurement Using A Non-Contact Optical Technique

This research is aimed at creating a system of automatic acquisition of three-dimensional data with one or more teeth and oral cavity so as to be able to reconstruct a more accurate substitutive prosthesis. Its purpose is to reduce the disturbance to the patient due to impressions (imprints of teeth, abutments and jaws) and bite registration (imprints of how the teeth and the jaws fit together) and to provide greater precision in the production phase while giving therein a greater reliability in the time. In the classic construction of a dental prosthesis the low accuracy modeling gives an imperfect matching between the prosthesis and the oral cavity which in turn causes lasting disturbance to the patient. Moreover, the creation of a solid model from the impression or mold taken of the patient’s teeth requires contact between the model material and the dental mold and may result in contamination if either is not properly sterilized. Therefore, a non-contact measuring system is essentially required. In order to achieve these results, an automatic system based on a smart sensor with an opto-electronic technology will be realized. All the data will be treated to obtain a model of the tooth adapted for a tool machine. A prototype can be obtained by means of a laser sintering process for the execution of the final prosthesis. An advanced interferometric technique with an automatic image processing system (Holostrain) has been applied.