Appliance for dental navigation

1. A method for mapping a selected position on or within a human jaw to a corresponding position in a volumetric CT (computerized X-ray tomography) image of that jaw, the method comprising:

providing a moldable retainer appliance;

molding the retainer appliance to have an appliance geometry that mates with a surface geometry of at least a portion of the human jaw, such that when mated to the human jaw, the retainer appliance resists displacement relative to the human jaw;

hardening the appliance to retain the appliance geometry and resist deformation;

providing an arm comprising a moldable link portion and a rigid fixation portion;

rigidly attaching the link portion to the retainer appliance to maintain a fixed spatial mapping between the fixation portion and the retainer appliance to provide a fabricated appliance;

detachably and rigidly attaching a CT marker including a fiducial detectable in the volumetric CT image to the fixation portion at a CT marker connection region to provide an imaging appliance including the fabricated appliance and the CT marker;

attaching the imaging appliance to the human jaw;

scanning the human jaw with the imaging appliance attached thereto to obtain the volumetric CT image of at least a portion of the fiducial and a portion of the human jaw in the volumetric CT image;

detecting the pose of the fiducial in the volumetric CT image to derive a fiducial-to-image coordinate mapping;

detaching the CT marker from the fixation portion to provide the fabricated appliance;

detachably and rigidly attaching a pose-trackable tag to the fixation portion at a tag connection region to provide a tracking appliance including the fabricated appliance and the tag, wherein a configuration of the tag connection region relative to the CT marker connection region ensures a fixed tag-to-fiducial coordinate mapping prior to attaching any one of the tag and the CT marker;

determining a tag-to-image coordinate mapping using the tag-to-fiducial coordinate mapping and the fiducial-to-image coordinate mapping;

attaching the tracking appliance to the human jaw;

determining a pose of the tracking appliance using a pose measurement system;

determining tag coordinates of the selected position in a coordinate system of the tag using the pose of the tracking appliance; and

mapping the tag coordinates of the selected position to a corresponding position in the volumetric CT image using the tag-to-image coordinate mapping.

2. The method according to claim 1 , wherein:

the link portion is rigidly attached to the appliance by:

heating the link portion to a link transition temperature such that the link portion becomes soft and malleable;

placing the link portion into contact with the retainer appliance;

securing the link portion to the retainer appliance; and

hardening the link portion to remain rigid and resist deformation such that the link portion is rigidly attached to the appliance and maintains the fixed spatial mapping between the fixation portion and the retainer appliance.

3. The method according to claim 2 , further comprising:

detachably and rigidly attaching the CT marker to the fixation portion at the CT marker connection region prior to attaching the link portion to the retainer appliance;

placing the link portion into contact with the retainer appliance and securing the link portion to the retainer appliance by

rigidly fixing an end of the softened link portion to the retainer appliance;

pushing the arm, with the CT marker attached thereto, in a direction towards the appliance such that the softened link portion is molded to allow the fixation portion to be fixed in a support position relative to the retainer appliance such that at least a portion of the fiducial will appear in the volumetric CT image of the human jaw when the imaging appliance is attached to that jaw; and

hardening the link portion such that the link portion is rigidly attached to the appliance with the fixation portion in the support position.

4. The method according to claim 3 , wherein securing the link portion to the retainer appliance comprises gluing the link portion to the retainer appliance.

5. The method according to claim 4 , wherein molding the retainer appliance to have the appliance geometry comprises:

heating the retainer appliance to a retainer transition temperature such that the retainer appliance becomes soft and malleable; and

pushing the softened retainer appliance into contact with the at least a portion of the human jaw having the surface geometry.

6. The method according to claim 5 , further comprising:

heating the link portion to a link transition temperature such that the link portion becomes soft and malleable;

detachably and rigidly attaching the CT marker to the fixation portion at the CT marker connection region, the CT marker having at least one link engaging member;

molding the link portion by pushing the at least one link engaging member into a surface of the link portion so that the at least one link engaging member deforms the surface of the link portion to provide at least one indentation corresponding to the at least one link engaging member; and

hardening the link portion such that, when the CT marker is detachably attached to the fixation portion at the CT marker connection region, each link engaging member is receivable within the corresponding indentation and the CT marker is thereby restrained from moving relative to the link portion.