126 results about "Angles Classification" patented technology

A method and apparatus for facilitating placement and evaluation of virtual appliances on virtual teeth of an orthodontic patient are described. Positioning references comprising bracket height, occlusal plane, or any arbitrary plane are provided to facilitate desired placement of virtual appliances on virtual teeth model. The process can be applied with any dentition state of a patient such as malocclusion, target state from treatment, or intermediate monitored state during the course of a treatment. An unified workstation for treatment planning provides the computer software tools for verification, simulation and evaluation of the virtual appliance placement. The process enables proper planning of treatment for an orthodontic patient suffering from malocclusion involving bonding of virtual brackets to the surface of the patient's virtual teeth with archwires placed in the slots of the brackets, so as to realize the desired results from the treatment in the most desired manner.

It is a common practice with orthodontists in planning treatment for a patient to prescribe dental changes to cure the malocclusion condition of the patient in terms of mesial or distal, buccal or lingual, and occlusal (coronal) or gingival translational displacements; and facial or lingual torque; mesial or distal angulation and mesial or distal rotation displacements. A method and workstation for measuring the dental displacements, or conversely placing the dental elements in desired positions as per the prescriptions for their displacements in a consistent, reproducible and accurate manner is disclosed. A novel orthogonal curvilinear coordinate system is disclosed that enables the measurement of the tooth displacements in conjunction with the individual tooth axes system.

Methods of treating malocclusion and inducing osteogenesis as well as an apparatus for treating malocclusion are described. The methods and apparatus utilize cyclic forces as compared to static forces to achieve their results.

A pacifier, a system and a method for maintaining proper dentitions in a child are provided. The pacifier may have a bulb which is connected to an external shield by an isthmus. A child may suck on the bulb when the pacifier is worn in the mouth. The isthmus connecting the bulb and the external shield may be flat. Moreover, the isthmus may have a thickness which may be less than a thickness of known connectors, and may be wider from side-to-side than connectors associated with known pacifiers which connect a bulb and an external shield. As a result, the pacifier may prevent the child from developing, for example, an open bite or other malocclusion. The pacifier may or may not incorporate a thickened pillow to aid in the reduction of pain associated with teething.

A improved vibrating dental plate that allows accelerative forces in addition to vibrating forces to assist in remodeling is provided.

A sequential orthodontic appliance includes a body and one or more first magnets disposed on the body and arranged to provide either repulsive or attractive force between one or more second magnets disposed on a surface of a tooth in need of repositioning. One or more temporary anchorage devices are used to secure the appliance to a person with the body disposed approximate the tooth.

Systems and methods are disclosed for treating teeth to correct for malocclusions. This may be accomplished by applying a series of labels to a digital dental model and applying a rolling ball process to identify tooth boundaries separating one tooth from a neighboring tooth and to also determine the crown/gum margin. The user may further assign regions to the dental model to indicate hard regions and soft regions. With the dental model labeled and defined, the user may then generate a treatment plan for moving the labeled and defined tooth or teeth relative to one another to correct for any malocclusions. Upon approval of the treatment plan, a series of 3D printed dental appliances or aligners to be worn in series by the patient may be fabricated to ultimately move the tooth or teeth to a desired position.

A dental appliance having increased or decreased thickness between an upper shell and a lower shell in combination with a hinging mechanism and a system and a method for treating malocclusions are provided. The dental appliance may have an upper shell and a lower shell which receive upper teeth and lower teeth, respectively, of a user. The upper shell and the lower shell may be attached at a hinge. The dental appliance may have an increased thickness between the upper shell and the lower shell as well as an increased thickness of the hinge. In an embodiment, the dental appliance may have a decreased vertical thickness and an insertable hinging mechanism. The dental appliance may then extend treatment of malocclusions to the rear teeth of the user and may correct a dental condition, such as, for example, overbite, overjet, open bite, crowding, rotations, spacing, cross-bites, gummy smiles and temporomandibular joint problems.

The present invention aims to provide an orthodontic appliance capable of efficiently applying vibration to teeth to be aligned and enabling a treatment to be easily and safely continued even at home. This appliance is provided with a load applying mechanism and a vibration generating actuator. The load applying mechanism is mounted on teeth to apply a load for the malocclusion correction to a specified tooth in the teeth. The vibration generating actuator includes a contact portion that is inserted into a buccal cavity containing the teeth and can come into contact with a part of the load applying mechanism corresponding to the specified tooth or the specified tooth, and applies a vibration force from the contact portion to the specified tooth or the part of the load applying mechanism.

A method of automatically producing or reproducing a customized AGP (Anterior Guidance Package) equipped splint for a patient with or without a severe malocclusion is provided. The method of automatically producing or reproducing an AGP equipped splint according to current invention comprises of combining Virtual Articulation, CAD (Computer Aided Design)-CAM (Computer Aided Manufacturing) method with AGP and special retentive piece technology. The method of the current invention enables a patient with or without a severe malocclusion to receive his/her customized AGP equipped splint or a replacement thereof automatically without visiting the dentist again and again.

An orthodontic brace includes a set of appliances that are connected to respective teeth of the patient. At least some of the appliances include a latch that is operable to release an archwire from the appliance whenever the force exerted by the archwire exceeds a certain value. This value is higher for appliances connected to certain teeth than the value associated with appliances connected to other teeth, in accordance with the particular malocclusion encountered. The brace is constructed to ensure that the goals of the treatment program are carried out in an efficient manner while reducing the likelihood of inadvertent release of the archwire during the course of treatment.

The invention discloses a local shape matching method based on outline random sampling. The local shape matching method based on outline random sampling comprises the steps that all sub-outline sequences of a target outline to be matched and random sub-outlines on a template outline are extracted through a geometric round radius method; the length and width ratios of the minimum rotation bounding rectangles and the outline area features of a target sub-outline and the random sub-outlines of the template are extracted, and primary matching is conducted; mean value distance chain code and mean value angle chain code features, based on angle classification, of the sub-outlines of the outline points obtained after primary matching are extracted; secondary matching is conducted between the chain code features obtained through the random sub-outlines of the template and the sub-outlines obtained after primary matching, so that a small number of optimal matched outlines are obtained; a coordinate conversation matrix of the random sub-outlines of the template and the matched sub-outlines are calculated, and the outline of the whole template is projected to the target outline through the conversation matrix; the coordinate conversation matrix of the sub-outlines is updated; and the optimal matched outline is recognized. By the adoption of the local shape matching method, a matched result can be rapidly and reliably provided, the image registration calculation efficiency is high, and the adaptability is high.

The invention discloses a fundus image registering method based on SIFT characteristics. The method comprises: conducting angle classification to a batch of inputted fundus images; calculating the transformative relationship among the images; converting the images onto the same background; and through the rapid switching of the images, finding out which parts of the fundus change. The invention mainly uses a fuzzy convergence optic disc positioning algorithm and conducts angle classification to the batch of inputted fundus images according to the position of the optic disc wherein the angle classification is referred as two types: the left side and the right side; and then in each image classification, a selected and uploaded first image is used as a reference for other images to register with; the SIFT characteristic points of all the images are extracted and the matching relation between every two points is calculated. Finally, the RANSAC algorithm is used to calculate the transformation model parameters between every two images. The images are converted onto the same background according to the transformation model; and an image switching interval is configured so that through the switching of the images, it is possible to find out the change among the images rapidly and accurately.

Methods and systems are provided for manufacturing an appliance for correcting malocclusions of a patient's teeth. The method may include measuring the positions of a patient's teeth and receiving tooth movement constraints. The method may also include generating an initial treatment plan based on the measured tooth positions and the tooth movement constraints and measuring the malocclusions of the patient's teeth for one or more types of dental malocclusions. The method may also include generating a plurality of treatment plans from the initial treatment plan based on the measured malocclusion and generating a model of an appliance for each stage of the treatment plan. The method may also include generating instructions for fabricating the appliance for each stage of the treatment plan based on the model of the appliance for each stage of the treatment plan.

A dental apparatus for use with a connecting member coupled to a jaw in a patient's mouth. The apparatus includes an orthodontic device and a connecting device carried by the orthodontic device. The connecting device includes a receptacle adapted to partially receive the connecting member and a blocking member. The blocking member is moveable relative to the receptacle between an opened position in which the connecting member may be disengaged from the receptacle and a closed position in which the connecting member is captured within the receptacle for pivotally engaging the orthodontic device with the connecting member. The orthodontic device may further include a biasing member selectively activated to provide a spring-biased force to the jaw. A method of using the dental apparatus includes moving the blocking member to capture/release the connecting member in the receptacle and activating/deactivating the biasing member to operate the apparatus in a different mode.