Patent Application
20250218590
The entire content of the priority application EP22166948.4 is hereby incorporated by reference to this international application under the provisions of the PCT.
The present invention relates to computer-implemented methods and systems for processing digital dental impressions.
A digital dental impression is a digital representation of a patient's oral anatomy. The dental impression is used for providing for the patient with dental treatments or dental objects such as surgical templates, custom devices, prosthetic restorations, or orthodontic aligners. The digital dental impression is usually captured by means of a dental scanner, for example an intraoral scanner. Building a good dental digital impression can take time and require high-quality equipment. Sometimes, imperfections such as gaps can exist in the digital dental impression, which may be required to be remedied, for example, via a repeat scan. This can increase the chair time for the patient.
In such situation when the dental procedure is applied to imperfect digital impression problems are likely to occur during the processing. This may lead to false dental treatment or inappropriate dental restorations.
The inventors are not aware of any technique in which the applicability of a dental procedure to the digital impression is analyzed, and the user is informed by the level of applicability of the dental procedure to the digital dental impression.
An objective of the present invention is to provide an improved method and system for processing digital dental impressions which prevents false dental treatment or inappropriate dental objects.
This objective has been achieved by the method as defined in claim 1, and the system as defined in claim 8. The other claims relate to further developments and preferred embodiments.
The present invention provides a computer-implemented method for digital dentistry. The method comprises the steps of: providing patient-specific digital data of a patient, wherein the said data comprises a digital dental impression of a craniofacial anatomy, and wherein the said data is described in terms of a mesh, point cloud, voxels, tetrahedrons or a combination thereof; providing a database comprising: a plurality of dental procedures and associated criteria that the said data must satisfy so that the dental procedure can be applied to said data, wherein the dental procedure is either (i) a diagnosis procedure which relates to abrasion, caries, periodontitis, gingival atrophy, gingivitis, tooth surface loss, cracked tooth, pericoronititis, alveolar osteitis, jaw tumors and cysts, poor oral hygiene, temporomandibular joint disorders or combination thereof; or (ii) a treatment planning procedure which includes a dental application that relates to a crown, an inlay, an onlay, a veneer, an implant, an aligner, a bracket, a denture, a bridges, or an endodontic treatment or a combination thereof, and wherein the criteria is described in terms of one or more of the following: consistency, watertightness, flipped triangles, flipped normals, normal sets, triangle size, number of components, self-intersections, scan bodies, noise, presence of prepared teeth, completeness of jaw, full jaw scan, or partial jaw scan, dental objects such as implants, abutments, brackets, and tooth misalignment; analyzing the said data whether it meets the criteria or not, and whether the said data has deficiencies such as inconsistencies and/or non-conformities in the meshes, point clouds, voxels, tetrahedrons; determining based on the analysis a level of applicability of the dental procedure to the provided data, wherein the level of the applicability is determined through the degree of criteria met by the provided data and the detected deficiencies, and wherein the level of applicability is classified into three levels according to which the dental procedure is either determined as being applicable when the criteria is met, not applicable when the criteria is not met, or applicable at the discretion of the user when one or more deficiencies are detected; and outputting the determined level of applicability to a practitioner.
According to the present invention the applicability of a given digital impression can be evaluated essentially simultaneously for different dental procedures, and it can also be applied in an on-the-fly manner while acquiring the digital impression from a patient to make the acquisition of the digital impression more efficient.
For example, the analysis of the digital impression may lead to a determination that the digital impression is suitable for producing a dental crown, but not suitable for producing a dental bridge. Similar evaluations can also be done, e.g., for aligners, veneers, or any other dental objects, by analyzing the cells of the dental procedure with respect to the specific cell criteria of that object. The cells may be in any suitable form usable for digital dental impressions in the dental domain, for example, in the form of mesh, point cloud, voxels, tetrahedrons, or a combination of any two or more of these forms.
An advantage of the present invention is that usability of the digital dental impression is improved. For example, even if a given digital dental impression is not good enough for a specific dental object, it may be good enough for another dental object or dental procedure. In such cases, the planning or dental procedure may be initiated before capturing a new digital impression. Alternatively, or additionally, the digital dental impression (hereinafter shortly referred to as digital impression), which was captured in the past, e.g., months, or longer ago, may be analyzed to check if it is still usable for a more recent dental procedure which the patient may require. Thus, unnecessary acquisition of a new digital impression may be prevented. Digital dentistry can thus be improved.
According to the present invention, the method may also comprise detecting, in response to the analysis, one or more deficiencies in the cells for usability in one or more of the dental procedures.
Thus, when the cells are analyzed, it may be detected if any cells have one or more deficiencies which can prevent them from being usable for one or more of the dental procedures. For example, the deficiencies may be any one or more of lacking precision globally or locally, lacking completeness, inconsistency, artifacts, mesh defects such as holes, bad triangles, improper structure such as foreign objects, other data such as color or shade. For example, the analysis may involve determining that cell precision is good locally or in parts of the digital impression, and/or globally, or for the overall digital impression. Alternatively, or additionally, the analysis may involve checking completeness, in the sense that the digital impression comprises all relevant parts or cells necessary for a given dental procedure. For example, some dental procedures may be possible but the others, not e.g., no aligner possible if the digital impression relates only a partial jaw, or precision of a full jaw digital impression is bad. Alternatively, or additionally, the analysis may involve verifying that the digital impression is consistent with respect to other patient data. For example, if the digital impression is mistakenly included in the wrong patient folder which comprises other patient data such as past digital impression and/or CT scan data and/or X-ray data and/or optical scan data and/or patient photos and/or videos, the analysis may determine the digital impression being unusable, preferably for all of the dental procedures. It can thus be prevented that wrong digital impression being used for the dental procedure. Wrong treatment and/or production of a wrong dental object can thus be prevented. Alternatively, or additionally, the analysis may involve detecting presence of any artifact which may prevent the digital impression being usable for any dental procedure. Alternatively, or additionally, the analysis may involve detecting defects such as breaks or data gaps, e.g., broken mesh, holes and/or bad triangles, presence of foreign objects in the impression which may prevent the digital impression being usable for any dental procedure. Those skilled in the art shall appreciate that it may not only be determined which category of dental procedures the digital impression is suitable for or not, but also suitability for a specific kind of dental procedure. For example, it may not only be determined if the digital impression is suitable for a dental crown in general, but it may also be determined which kinds of dental crowns are realizable with the digital impression and which kinds not.
According to the present invention, the computing unit accessing it may also have access to data such as one or more surface scans, volumetric data, articulator data, patient photos and/or videos.
According to the present invention, the method may also comprise determining, in response to the analysis, at least one location or part of the digital impression in which of the cells should be repaired, and thus improved.
Thus, it may be identified in response to the analysis, in which part the digital impression should be repaired, e.g., to remove the one or more deficiencies. Hence, it is not only provided a determination that the digital impression is not suitable for which of the dental procedures, but also how the digital impression is to be improved to remedy the deficiency. Thus, rather than repeating the whole scan to acquire a new digital impression, the existing digital impression can be repaired. This can save time and effort.
According to the present invention, the method can provide a significant advantage when applied in an on-the-fly manner, i.e., the analysis is performed while the digital impression is being acquired from a patient. For example, while the patient is in chair for getting the digital impression captured, the analysis may run continuously or intermittently to determine suitability of the digital impression for at least one dental procedure. Thus, as soon as the digital impression is in a state that it meets the respective criteria and cell description, the suitability for those respective dental procedures is determined. This and/or other responses may be provided at a human machine interface (“HMI”) unit such as a display of the system executing the method. Thus, the method may comprise providing, at a human machine interface, one or more responses to the analysis.
Thereby, the user is informed that suitability of the digital impression for a given dental procedure has been reached. Consequently, the user is enabled to terminate the acquisition. This can reduce the acquisition time to what is necessary for obtaining a digital impression for a given purpose rather than over engineering or over working the acquisition process.
The response to the HMI may be in the form of a termination signal, e.g., for informing the user that the acquisition can be terminated. Alternatively, or additionally, the termination signal may automatically terminate the acquisition process. Hence, according to the present invention, the method may comprise generating a termination signal for terminating the acquisition of the digital impression in response to the analysis.
Alternatively, or additionally, the method may comprise providing an initiation signal for initiating a dental procedure and/or a cell corrective procedure for repair in response to the analysis.
Thus, the initiation signal may be used to inform the user that a given dental procedure and/or cell corrective procedure for that dental procedure can be initiated, and/or any one or both of these procedures may be initiated automatically.
According to the present invention, the method may also comprise determining, in response to the initiation signal, at least remedial action by which the cells should be repaired, preferably for a pre-determined dental procedure.
Hence, it may also be determined which remedial actions need to be performed for making the digital impression suitable for the pre-determined dental procedure. An output of the determination may be provided at the HMI to assist the user in improving the digital impression and/or the remedial action may be started or performed at least partially automatically.
Alternatively, or additionally, the according to the present invention, the method may comprise determining, in response to the analysis, at least one quality score (level of applicability) for the cells.
Thus, it may be determined at least one quality score for at least one dental procedure, and preferably for all of the dental procedures. A quality score may be indicative of the degree of suitability for the digital impression for a given dental procedure. At least one, preferably a plurality of quality scores is displayed at the HMI. The quality scores may relate to different dental procedures.
Alternatively, or additionally, according to the present invention, the cell analysis is performed via a cell analyzer such as a microprocessor or a neural network. The analyzer can be trained via machine learning with cell analysis training data comprising a plurality of historical digital impressions and their corresponding dental procedure data.
According to the present invention a digital impression which comprises the corrected cells as herein generated is an optimized digital impression. Thus, the present invention also provides a data storage medium storing a digital impression comprising the corrected cells as generated in any of the herein disclosed methods. Also, there can be provided a use of a digital impression comprising the corrected cells as generated in any of the herein disclosed methods for performing a dental procedure and/or for manufacturing a dental object.
For example, there can be provided a method for performing a dental procedure and/or a method for manufacturing a dental object, comprising providing a digital impression comprising the corrected cells as generated in any of the herein disclosed methods; performing, using the digital impression, the dental procedure and/or manufacturing of the dental object.
The present invention also provides a system comprising means for performing the steps of any of the methods herein disclosed.
For example, there can be provided a system for digital dentistry, which comprises one or more computing units, wherein any of the computing units is/are configured to: provide or access, a three-dimensional digital impression of a craniofacial anatomy; wherein the digital impression comprises a plurality of cells; provide or access a database of a plurality of dental procedures and their corresponding criteria; analyze the digital impression whether it meets the criteria or not, and whether the said data has deficiencies such as inconsistencies and/or non-conformities in the cells; determine, in response to the analysis, which of the dental procedures the digital impression is usable for and/or which of the dental procedures the digital impression is not usable for.
According to the present invention, there is also provided a computer software, or a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing the software comprising instructions which when executed by a suitable one or more computing units cause any of the computing units to perform the steps of any of the methods herein disclosed.
Digital impression (digital model) refers to a digital representation or model of the patient's craniofacial anatomy, more specifically oral anatomy. The digital model includes representation of anatomical features such as the patient's teeth and/or hard and/or soft tissues in and around the patient's gums. The digital impression may be usable for diagnosis and/or providing for the patient one or more treatments and/or procedures, e.g., any one or more of: dental treatment or procedure, providing or producing dental objects such as surgical templates, custom devices, prosthetic restorations, and orthodontic aligners.
The digital impression may comprise, or it may be in the form of, surface data and/or volume data of the patient's craniofacial anatomy. Accordingly, the digital impression may be in the form of a surface model and/or a volume model. The digital impression is obtained via one or more medical scans performed on the patient.
The digital impression comprises a plurality of cells or components, which may be data points arranged in surface and/or volume distribution. For example, the digital impression may be in the form of a point cloud. Other representations or forms of the digital impression may include, two-dimensional (2D) and/or three-dimensional (“D) mesh, voxels, tetrahedrons, or even their suitable combination. Hence, the digital impression may comprise any one or more of: datapoint e.g., in the form of point cloud, mesh, voxel, and tetrahedron.
The digital impression may even comprise articulator data, patient photos, or videos, or combination thereof.
The digital impression may be provided via any medical scan such as, an optical scan, an X-ray, CT scan, or any of their combinations. The digital impression may relate to the whole craniofacial anatomy, or parts of it. For example, the digital impression may be in the form of an intraoral surface scan performed via an intraoral scanner.
Medical scan may refer to any kind of scan performed on a patient, intraorally and/or extraorally. For example, the medical scan may result from a diagnosis or scanning procedure, such as an X-ray computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), optical dental scan, Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT), positron emission tomography (PET), Heidelberg retina tomography (HRT), optical coherence tomography (OCT), ultrasound tomography, cone beam computer tomography (CBCT), for example dental CBCT, dental MRI or any combinations or variations of tomography imaging techniques as e.g. PET-CT or angiography.
Anatomical feature refers to information related to a specific craniofacial anatomy, such as oral anatomy of the patient. For example, an anatomical feature may be information related to a specific tooth or a group of teeth. Thus, anatomical features may refer to information related to intraoral structures such as dentition, gingiva, nerve channel, extraction site, jawbone, and condyle. Alternatively, or in addition, intraoral structures may be artificial structures such as dental replacements, e.g., dental crown, braces, veneer, bridge. Alternatively, or in addition, an intraoral structure may in some cases be a scan body (or scanbody) or other natural or artificial structures attached to the jaw of the patient. Alternatively, or additionally, the anatomical feature may be information related to a pathology or condition. For example, pathology or condition may be fracture of tooth or bone, caries, radiolucency, impaction, or any other characterizable state of the oral anatomy or any part thereof.
The anatomical feature may for example be a shape of a specific tooth and/or a location or position of the tooth in an absolute manner or relative to other intraoral structures. Alternatively, or additionally, the anatomical feature may be color and/or texture of an anatomical part or intraoral structure.
Criteria refers to one or more criterion which are indicative of suitability or useability of the digital impression for at least one dental procedure. Preferably, each different dental procedure is associated with their corresponding criteria. Dependent upon the type of digital impression, the criteria may include consistency criteria which is indicative of general validity of the cells, e.g. a mesh. In such a case, the criteria may include measures such as adjacency correctness and vertex triangle relationship correctness. This criteria may depend on the specification of the cells or mesh.
It shall be appreciated that the criteria may apply locally and/or globally to the digital impression. By local criteria, it is meant those criteria which apply to parts of a specific digital impression. By global criteria, it is meant those criteria which apply to a specific digital impression as a whole. Thus, in some cases, the criteria may even be overall surface and/or volume criteria related to their respective digital impression.
For ease of understanding, in the following the various criteria will be explained with reference to a mesh. Those skilled in the art shall appreciate that similar criteria can be defined also of other kinds of cells. For mesh topology is usually based on triangles. Thus, the following criteria also apply, analogously, to quadrilateral-or other simple polygon-based topologies.
Alternatively, or additionally, the criteria may include watertightness criteria which is indicative for example of whether the mesh surface divides the space into two parts (e.g., inner vs. outer space). For example, the watertightness criteria may evaluate that no holes are existing in the mesh surface.
Alternatively, or additionally, the criteria may include flipped triangles criteria, which evaluates folded regions on the mesh surface, where the surface normals of two neighboring triangles are approximately in opposite direction (e.g., subject to a threshold value).
Alternatively, or additionally, the criteria may include flipped normals criteria, which evaluates whether the surface normals point in the correct direction, e.g., to the outside subspace in case of a watertight surface mesh.
Alternatively, or additionally, the criteria may include normal sets criteria, which evaluates regions on the surface mesh which are identified to have same or similar normals, e.g., flat regions.
Alternatively, or additionally, the criteria may include triangle size criteria, which evaluates size for triangles of associated elements, such as one or more of: edge length, edge length ratios, angles between edges, and triangle area.
Alternatively, or additionally, the criteria may include component number criteria, which evaluates number of independent mesh components. In case of watertight, non-intersecting meshes, components may represent independent objects. This analysis may be suitable for fragment or artifact detection.
Alternatively, or additionally, the criteria may include self-intersection criteria, which evaluates whether the surface mesh intersects with itself.
In response to analyzing the cells with respect to the criteria, one or more cell corrective process or repair attempts can be executed. The cell corrective process may have different levels of compatibility. Mild or minor modifications may include mesh operations which do not alter the geometry (e.g., triangle subdivision), but more intensive mesh alterations may also be performed. The cell corrective process or procedure may even be performed in a closed loop manner, such that it is evaluated continuously or intermittently in the process: input mesh quality, mesh quality after successful or partially successful mesh repair, or all of them.
Dental procedure refers to any procedure which involves use of, or a procedure which can benefit from the digital impression. For example, the dental procedure may be implant planning and/or design and/or manufacture of a dental object such as a prosthetic tooth.
The neural networks may derive its functionality at least partially from training data. The neural network can reduce computational power and improve speed. Moreover, the neural network can detect patterns or indications (e.g., in input or input data provided to the neural network) which may be difficult to implement analytically. The neural network may be implanted as software and/or hardware form.
It shall be appreciated that in the present context, the neural network is parametrized according to the respective training data set. For example, a anatomy neural network is parameterized via its respective training data to detect one or more anatomical features. Feature engineering and training with the respective training datasets thus enables parametrization of the neural network.
The neural network may describe the relation between its input and output as a function or one or more mathematical equations. A so-called grey box, white-box and/or black-box method can be adapted.
The neural network may be trained in a supervised manner using anatomy training data comprising historical digital impressions and/or cell arrangements with annotation data specifying respective anatomical features. Alternatively, or additionally, the anatomy neural network may be trained in an unsupervised manner.
When in inference mode, the neural network may be provided with the digital impression as input. The neural network provides the anatomy data as an output. The anatomy data comprise at least one annotation related to at least one anatomical feature detected in the digital impression.
According to the present invention, the anatomy neural network performs segmentation operation on the cells for detecting the anatomical features. Alternatively, or additionally, the anatomy neural network performs detection and/or localization operations for detecting the anatomical features.
According to the present invention, the anatomy neural network extracts one or more features of interest, or the anatomical features, by analyzing the digital impression. Thus, by doing so, semantic understanding of the digital impression or cells, may be obtained.
Segmentation operation in the present context refers to a computerized processing operation which concludes with demarcation of at least one anatomical feature e.g., with a computer-generated feature boundary. The boundary may for example be realized by grouping the cells into a plurality of groups, at least one of the groups be associated with a unique anatomical feature.
The neural network may perform the segmentation operation for detecting the one or more pre-selected anatomical features. Thus, the anatomy neural network may segment the cells for detection. Thus, the neural network may extract attributes or one or more objects or features of interest by analyzing the digital impression, or more specifically, the cells. The anatomy neural network may classify every cell in the digital impression to a class according to its context such that each cell is assigned to a specific object. For example, a segmentation operation may be an outline around a feature such as a pre-selected anatomical feature, such as a specific tooth or even a group of teeth. Another example is an outline around a specific pathology. Said segmented outline corresponds to the shape of the respective anatomical feature present in the digital impression. There may be a plurality of segmented objects in the digital impression.
According to the present invention, in addition to the neural network approach, the segmentation operation may be supplemented by an analytical model using any suitable segmentation algorithm, e.g., point and line detection, edge linking, and/or thresholding method, histogram, adaptive, and their likes.
The segmentation operation may be based on images, through 2D, 3D segmentation. Thus, objects or regions of interest may include tooth and/or teeth surface, gingiva surface, foreign objects, brackets, scan body surfaces, but also point-or line-based features such as tooth cusps and fissures. The features of interest may not be limited to cell surface or mesh surface, such as e.g., teeth centers of gravity, but alternatively, or additionally, the features may also be subdivided into sub-features such as buccal vs. lingual tooth surface. Based on the segmentation, other metrics such as tooth numbers may be derived.
The output of the segmentation operation may be used for analyzing the cells with respect to the criteria. For example, a semantic output of the segmentation operation may be used to evaluate presence or absence of a certain anatomical feature in the digital impression.
Alternatively, or additionally, the segmentation operation output may comprise cell related quality, e.g., any one or more of consistency, watertightness, flipped triangles or normals, normal sets, triangle or polygon size, or self-intersections.
Cell analyzer neural network refers to a network which is used at least partially for performing the cell analysis, e.g., analyzing the cells with respect to the criteria. Additionally, in some cases, the cell analyzer neural network may also determine which of the dental procedures the digital impression is usable for and/or which of the dental procedures the digital impression is not usable for.
The cell analyzer neural network refers to a neural network which is trained with cell analyzer training data comprising a plurality of historical digital impressions each of which are linked to at least one dental procedure which the respective digital impression is suitable for and/or at least one dental procedure which the respective digital impression is unsuitable for. The criteria may be inherently defined by the cell analyzer neural network by virtue of being trained from the cell analyzer training data. In some cases, an additional analytical computing unit may be provided to the cell analyzer neural network for additional criteria imposed on the cells. The additional analytical computing unit may be placed in series, upstream and/or downstream, and/or it may be arranged in a parallel manner.
Initiation signal refers to a signal generated in response to the cell analysis. The initiation signal may be used to initiate a dental procedure, manually and/or automatically. For example, the initiation signal may be provided at the HMI for informing the user to initiate the dental procedure. Alternatively, or additionally, the dental procedure may be initiated automatically.
Alternatively, or additionally, the initiation signal may be used to initiate a cell corrective procedure for making the digital impression suitable for at least one predetermined dental procedure. Similar to the above, the initiation signal may be provided at the HMI for informing the user to initiate the cell corrective procedure. Alternatively, or additionally, the cell corrective procedure may be initiated automatically. According to the present invention, the user is guided to perform the cell corrective procedure. For example, the user may be guided to the at least one location or part of the digital impression in which of the cells should be improved through reparation. The user may even be guided through the entire process, for example, by continuously or intermittently evaluating the digital impression whether it has become suitable for the predetermined digital impression.
Termination signal refers to another signal generated in response to the cell analysis, however in some cases the initiation signal and the termination signal may be the same signal.
The termination signal may be used, for example, for terminating the acquisition of the digital impression in response to the analysis, manually and/or automatically. For example, the termination signal may be provided at the HMI for informing the user to terminate the acquisition of the digital impression. Alternatively, or additionally, the acquisition of the digital impression may be terminated automatically. The termination signal may also be used as the initiation signal for initiating the dental procedure in any of the manners explained above.
An advantage of such termination can be that no extra time needs to be spent on acquiring the digital impression further as soon as the digital impression meets the cell criteria for predetermined one or more of the dental procedures.
That two or more components are operatively coupled or connected shall be clear to those skilled in the art. This means that there may be at least one communicative connection between the coupled or connected components e.g., they are the network interface or any suitable interface. The communicative connection may either be fixed, or it may be removable. Moreover, the communicative connection may either be unidirectional, or it may be bidirectional. Furthermore, the communicative connection may be wired and/or wireless. In some cases, the communicative connection may also be used for providing control signals.
Computer processor refers to a circuitry configured for performing basic operations of a computer or system, and/or, to a device which is configured for performing calculations. In particular, the computer processor may be configured for processing basic instructions that drive the computer or system. As an example, the processing means or computer processor may comprise at least one arithmetic logic unit (ALU), at least one floating point unit (FPU), such as a math coprocessor or a numeric coprocessor, a plurality of registers, specifically registers configured for supplying operands to the ALU and storing results of operations, and a memory, such as an L1 and L2 cache memory. In particular, the computer processor may be a multi core processor. Specifically, the computer processor may be or may comprise a central processing unit (CPU). the processing means or computer processor may be a complex instruction set computing (CISC) microprocessor, reduced instruction set computing microprocessor (RISC), Very long instruction word (VLIW) microprocessor, a processor implementing other instruction sets or processors implementing a combination of instruction sets. The processing means may also be one or more special purpose processing devices such as an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), a field programmable gate array (FPGA), a complex programmable logic device (CPLD), a digital signal processor (DSP), a network processor, or the like. The methods, systems and devices disclosed herein may be implemented as machine learning, software in a DSP, in a microcontroller, or in any other side processor such as hardware unit within an ASIC, CPLD, or FPGA. It is to be understood that the term processor may also refer to one or more processing devices, such as a distributed system of processing devices located across multiple computer systems (such as cloud computing), and is not limited to a single device unless otherwise specified.
Memory storage may refer to a device for storage of information, in the form of data, in a suitable storage medium. Preferably, the memory storage is a digital storage suitable for storing the information in a digital form which is machine readable, for example digital data that are readable via a computer processor. The memory storage may thus be realized as a digital memory storage device that is readable by a computer processor. Further preferably, the memory storage on the digital memory storage device may also be manipulated by a computer processor. For example, any part of the data recorded on the digital memory storage device may be written and or erased and or overwritten, partially or wholly, with the new data by the computer processor.
Connectivity interface or communication interface refers to a software and/or hardware interface for establishing communication such as transfer or exchange of signals or data. The communication may either be wired, or it may be wireless. Connectivity interface is preferably based on, or it supports one or more communication protocols. The communication protocol may be a wireless protocol, for example: short distance communication protocol such as Bluetooth®, or Wi-Fi, or long communication protocols such as cellular or mobile network, for example, second generation cellular network (2G), 3G, 4G, long term evolution (LTE), or 5G. Alternatively, or in addition, the connectivity interface may even be based on proprietary short distance or long-distance protocol. The connectivity interface may support any one or more standards and/or proprietary protocols.
Network discussed herein may be any suitable kind of data transmission medium, wired, wireless, or their combination. The network can hence refer to any suitable arbitrary interconnection between at least one communication end point to another communication end point. Network may comprise one or more distribution points, routers or other types of communication hardware. The interconnection of the network may be formed by means of physically hard wiring, optical and/or wireless radio frequency (RF) methods. The network specifically may be, or it may comprise, a physical network fully or partially made by hard wiring, such as a fiber optical network or a network fully or partially made by electrically conductive cables or a combination thereof. The network may at least partially comprise the Internet.
Network interface refers to a device or a group of one or more hardware and/or software components that allow an operative connection with the network.
In the subsequent description further aspects and advantageous effects of the present invention will be described in more detail by using exemplary embodiments and by reference to the drawings, wherein
X, Y, Z: Different dental procedures.
The dental scanner 106 is operatively connected to a computing module 112 which comprises microprocessors and/or neural networks. In some cases, the computing module 112 may be located at least partially within the dental scanner 106. In some cases, the computing module 112 may at least partially be a part of a cloud service 114. Thus, the computing module 112 may be a local device at the location of the dental scanner 106 and/or at least partially a remotely located device or system, e.g., one or more cloud services 114 and/or a remote server. The computing module 112 is also operatively connected to a memory storage or a database 116, which may at least partially be a part of the cloud service 114. In this case, the database 116 is shown provided at the cloud service 114. The dental scanner 106 may connect to an external computing module 112 via a connectivity interface (not explicitly shown in
The computing module 112 may be operatively connected to the HMI 120, which in
The dental scanner 106 comprises a sensor unit (not explicitly shown in
The system can perform a computer-implemented method for digital dentistry. The method comprises the following steps: providing patient-specific digital data of a patient, wherein the said data comprises a digital dental impression of a craniofacial anatomy, and wherein the said data is described in terms of a mesh, point cloud, voxels, tetrahedrons or a combination thereof; providing a database comprising: a plurality of dental procedures and associated criteria that the said data must satisfy so that the dental procedure can be applied to said data, wherein the dental procedure is either (i) a diagnosis procedure which relates to abrasion, caries, periodontitis, gingival atrophy, gingivitis, tooth surface loss, cracked tooth, pericoronititis, alveolar osteitis, jaw tumors and cysts, poor oral hygiene, temporomandibular joint disorders or combination thereof; or (ii) a treatment planning procedure which includes a dental application that relates to a crown, an inlay, an onlay, a veneer, an implant, an aligner, a bracket, a denture, a bridges, or an endodontic treatment or a combination thereof, and wherein the criteria is described in terms of one or more of the following: consistency, watertightness, flipped triangles, flipped normals, normal sets, triangle size, number of components, self-intersections, scan bodies, noise, presence of prepared teeth, completeness of jaw, full jaw scan, or partial jaw scan, dental objects such as implants, abutments, brackets, and tooth misalignment; analyzing the said data whether it meets the criteria or not, and whether the said data has deficiencies such as inconsistencies and/or non-conformities in the meshes, point clouds, voxels, tetrahedrons; determining based on the analysis a level of applicability of the dental procedure to the provided data, wherein the level of the applicability is determined through the degree of criteria met by the provided data and the detected deficiencies, and wherein the level of applicability is classified into three levels according to which the dental procedure is either determined as being applicable when the criteria is met, not applicable when the criteria is not met, or applicable at the discretion of the user when one or more deficiencies are detected; and outputting the determined level of applicability to a practitioner.
In the subsequent description some examples will be described that explain the levels of applicability in a more detailed manner.
The computing module 112 is configured to analyze the cells with respect to the criteria. In response to this cell analysis, it is determined which of the dental procedures the digital impression 122 is usable for and/or which of the dental procedures the digital impression 122 is not usable for.
A response to the analysis is shown provided at the HMI 120, where a panel 102 is displayed with the plurality of dental procedures. In this example, six different dental procedures, namely a first dental procedure 124, a second dental procedure 126, a third dental procedure 128, a fourth dental procedure 130, a fifth dental procedure 132 and a sixth dental procedure 134 are shown with names and/or icons in the panel 102. More specifically, as a response to the cell analysis, it is determined that the digital impression 122 is suitable for the second dental procedure 126 and for the fourth dental procedure 130, while it is unsuitable for the first dental procedure 124, the third dental procedure 128, the fifth dental procedure 132 and the sixth dental procedure 134. The practitioner is thus enabled to decide whether to further improve the digital impression 122 or terminate the acquisition, thereby saving time and improving comfort for the patient 110. The determination may be done in the form of quality scores which in this example are in a simple binary form for convenience for the practitioner. The level of applicability (quality score) indicates a degree of the criteria met by the provided data of the digital dental impression which is described in terms of the said cell structure.
More specifically, a second quality score 138 and a fourth quality score 142 are shown as a “plus” icon which may represent that the digital impression 122 meets the criteria respectively for the second dental procedure 126 and the fourth dental procedure 130.
The quality scores of the rest of the dental procedures, namely, a first quality score 136, a third quality score 140, a fifth quality score 144 and a sixth quality score 146 are each shown as a “block” icon representing that the digital impression 122 is unsuitable for the associated dental procedures, i.e., for the first dental procedure 124, the third dental procedure 128, the fifth dental procedure 132 and the sixth dental procedure 134.
The quality scores may even be represented in more discrete levels, e.g., analogously in a traffic light form as shown in
Optionally, as a response to the analysis one or more a dental procedure and/or a cell corrective procedure may be initiated, for example, via an initiation signal. Similarly, the acquisition of the digital impression 122 may be automatically terminated if it meets the cell criteria of one or more predetermined dental procedures.
Thus, the practitioner can be assisted in taking informed decisions while reducing scan time to obtain the digital impression 122 which is suited for one or more purposes.
The above method can apply for any kind of digital impression 122, not only those obtainable via an intraoral scan.
In block 202, it is provided a three-dimensional digital impression 122 of a craniofacial anatomy 108. The digital impression 122 comprises a plurality of cells, for example, mesh, point cloud, voxels or tetrahedrons.
In block 204, it is provided, a database 116 or at the database 116, a plurality of dental procedures 124, 126, 128, 130, 132 and 134, and their corresponding criteria.
In block 206, it is analyzed, with respect to the criteria and deficiencies.
In block 208, it is determined in response to the analysis, which of the dental procedures the digital impression 122 is usable for and/or which of the dental procedures the digital impression 122 is not usable for.
Various embodiments and examples have been disclosed above for a method, a software program, and a system having the software for carrying out the methods herein disclosed.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 22166948.4 | Apr 2022 | EP | regional |
| Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| PCT/EP2023/055671 | 3/7/2023 | WO |
