Local enforcement of accuracy in fabricated models
The systems and methods disclosed herein employ a combination of digital three-dimensional modeling and rapid fabrication technologies to provide pre-indexed, pre-registered, and/or precut components for articulated dental models. Dental articulators and components of dental models as described herein use a positioning key to encode positional information for components of the dental model, and/or a reference grid on mounting surfaces to enforce local accuracy of fabricated parts against a fixed reference array.
1. A computer program product comprising computer executable code that, when executing on one or more computing devices, performs the steps of:
aligning a first digital dental model of at least a portion of an upper arch with a second digital dental model of at least a portion of a lower arch using a digital bite registration to obtain an occluded model;
providing a digital three-dimensional model of a dental articulator having two mounting surfaces, each of the two mounting surfaces including a raised surface with a reference grid formed of a repeating geometry that enforces local accuracy of an object fabricated according to the reference grid when the object is mated to a physical model of one of the two mounting surfaces including an accurate reproduction of the reference grid, each of the two mounting surfaces further including a positioning key that provides gross tactical feedback on proper alignment of an item including a complementary shape to the positioning key when inserted into the raised surface;
extending the occluded model to meet the digital three-dimensional model of the dental articulator at each of the two mounting surfaces thereof to provide a mechanically registered digital dental model; and
converting the digital dental model into a form suitable for fabrication.
2. The computer program product of claim 1 wherein the first digital dental model is a dental die.
3. The computer program product of claim 1 wherein the reference grid is a regular geometry having centers spaced at a pitch of less than 3 mm.
4. The computer program product of claim 1 wherein the reference grid has features spaced at between 0.5 mm and 5 mm.
5. The computer program product of claim 1 further comprising code that performs the step of adding a visual identification marking to the first digital model including one or more of text, a bar code, a logo, and a sku.
6. The computer program product of claim 1 wherein the first digital model includes a full arch or a partial arch.
7. The computer program product of claim 1 wherein the positioning key includes an orthogonal line pair.
8. The computer program product of claim 1 wherein the positioning key includes an alignment post.
9. The computer program product of claim 1 wherein the positioning key includes a number of alignment guides.
10. The computer program product of claim 1 wherein the positioning key includes visual markings.
11. The computer program product of claim 1 further comprising code that performs the step of adding one or more visual markings to the first digital dental model and one or more corresponding visual markings to the three-dimensional digital model of the dental articulator, wherein the one or more visual markings on the device and the one or more corresponding visual markings on the three-dimensional digital model of the dental articulator provide a visual guide to an alignment of the device to the dental articulator.
12. The computer program product of claim 1 further comprising code that performs the step of dividing the first digital dental model into a plurality of parts including at least one dental die, thereby providing a multi-part model.