Intraoral Scanner Real-Time Feedback via Projected Light Patterns
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current intraoral scanning methods are tedious and time-consuming, requiring clinicians to constantly switch between the patient's mouth and a display, making it difficult to ensure data quality and detect reconstruction inaccuracies, with existing systems failing to provide adequate feedback on successful registrations and missing areas.
Innovation Solution
A method and system that projects visual feedback, such as light patterns, onto the intraoral cavity to indicate successful or unsuccessful registrations, allowing clinicians to correct holes or gaps in real-time without needing a monitoring screen, using a projector and image sensor to provide feedback on the quality of 3D measurements based on predetermined criteria.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If clinicians constantly monitor the display to ensure data quality and check scan progress, then measurement precision and reliability are improved, but time consumption and operational complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system provides real-time visual feedback by projecting light patterns directly onto the intraoral cavity surfaces. Different light patterns indicate different scan quality states (e.g., green for successful registration, red for unsuccessful registration, yellow for incomplete coverage), allowing clinicians to immediately assess data quality without constantly checking the display screen.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces light patterns as an intermediary visual indicator between the scanning system and the clinician. Instead of requiring direct observation of complex 3D data on a screen, the system translates data quality information into intuitive light patterns that are projected onto the actual scan site, serving as a mediator that conveys scan status information.
2Measurement precision
If clinicians constantly switch between the patient's mouth and the display, then measurement precision is improved, but ease of operation deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
Real-time visual feedback is provided through projected light patterns that indicate scan quality and registration status directly at the scan site. This eliminates the need for clinicians to repeatedly look at the display screen, as the feedback is now available in the clinician's direct field of view during the scanning process.
Solution Approach 2:
The system transitions feedback from a two-dimensional display screen to a three-dimensional spatial presentation by projecting light patterns directly onto the intraoral cavity surfaces. This dimensional change allows clinicians to perceive scan quality information in the same spatial context where they are performing the scanning operation.
3Measurement precision
If the system provides detailed feedback on scan quality, then measurement precision is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system uses different light patterns and colors to encode various scan quality states. For example, green light indicates successful registration, red indicates unsuccessful registration, and yellow indicates incomplete coverage. This color-coded feedback system provides detailed quality information in a simple, intuitive manner without requiring complex interfaces or additional hardware.
4Device complexity
If clinicians rely solely on display monitoring, then device complexity is reduced, but measurement precision deteriorates due to undetected reconstruction inaccuracies
Solution Approach 1:
The system provides immediate visual feedback through projected light patterns that indicate registration success or failure and coverage completeness. This real-time feedback enables clinicians to detect and correct reconstruction inaccuracies during the scanning process itself, rather than discovering them later during review, thereby improving detection accuracy without significantly increasing system complexity.
Data Source
AI summary
A method and system for dynamically providing visual feedback about a quality of data collected during intra-oral scanning Images or light patterns are projected onto an object such as teeth for 3D measurement and for relaying feedback about a quality of the 3D measurement to a user. In this way unsuccessful registrations surface areas of the teeth that have not been acquired yet may be corrected by informing the user to repeat scans at corresponding locations in the intra-oral cavity.