Technique for defining the position of a model of the anatomy of a patient's dental arch within a global reference frame.

Abstract

A method for defining the position of the origin of a model of the anatomy of a patient's dental arch (302; 402) within a reference frame (XYZ) involves receiving an initial data set comprising a surface representation of the surface topology of the patient's dental arch (302; 402) and segmentation lines representing the boundaries between tooth crowns and adjacent soft tissue. A projection of the segmentation line onto an occlusal plane (412) is generated. A midpoint of a tooth in the occlusal plane (412) is determined as the centroid of an area bounded by a projected segmentation line. A segment of a parabola is fitted to the centroids. An anterior point of the patient's dental arch (302; 402) is identified as the vertex of the parabola.A first translation vector is determined to position the anterior point at the origin of a third principal component (X) of the reference frame.

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