Digital Tooth Block-Out for Concavity-Reduced Crown Milling
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
The manufacturing of dental prostheses, such as dental crowns, is complicated by concavities on the preparation tooth surface, leading to increased time and difficulty in milling and fabrication due to the need to reproduce these concavities as bumps on the restoration, and undercut regions can further complicate the process.
Innovation Solution
A computer-implemented method and system for reducing concavity in digital preparation teeth by identifying concave surface regions and moving vertices along their normals to reduce concavity, including automatic detection and reduction of concave regions without user intervention.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If the digital preparation tooth retains its original concave surface regions, then the manufacturing process accurately reproduces the tooth morphology, but the milling process becomes more time-consuming and complex due to bumps on the restoration inner side
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary digital block-out by automatically detecting concave regions on the digital preparation tooth surface and reducing their depth before the milling process begins. This pre-processing step eliminates the need for the mill to reproduce deep concavities as time-consuming bumps on the restoration inner side, thereby accelerating manufacturing while maintaining adequate morphology reproduction.
2Productivity
If concave regions are reduced through digital block-out, then the milling process becomes faster and easier, but the accuracy of reproducing the original tooth surface morphology decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies digital block-out selectively only to concave regions that meet specific depth criteria, while preserving convex regions and shallow concavities. This localized approach ensures that morphology accuracy is maintained in critical areas while productivity is improved in problematic deep concave regions, achieving a balanced optimization.
3Ease of operation
If automatic concavity reduction is implemented, then user intervention is minimized and processing is streamlined, but control over the precision of concavity reduction is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The system incorporates iterative feedback mechanisms where the digital block-out process can be automatically repeated multiple times with progressively smaller reduction amounts. The system monitors the evolving surface morphology and adjusts subsequent reduction steps accordingly, allowing automatic operation while maintaining precision through cumulative, controlled modifications rather than single aggressive changes.
Data Source
AI summary
A system and method include performing digital block-out of one or more digital preparation teeth.