Yakov Horenstein wrote:
> At 12:40 PM +0000 9/6/98, LEMS.BLR@RMD.sprintrpg.ems.vsnl.net.in wrote:
>
> >Of particular Interest is some information on Dental surgery, Dental IMplant
> >surgery using RP or RP as a aid to dental surgery.
>
> I checked this a few years ago. Dental implants and dental surgery need
> very precise models, which RP processes were not able to deliver at that
> time. Also, the cost for models was too high. But the dentists were very
> interested nevertheless.
The largest obstacle in making a model for dentists is that they want good
exterior surface definition as well as internal bone definition. One can obtain
good exterior definition of teeth by a simple dental impression, but in order to
get internal bone definition you rely on serial section xray technology. If the
patient has any dental work done (fillings, crowns...) the xray will reflect and
cause distortion.
Current rp technology does provide ample accuracy for models of teeth providing
you can get good data. Getting the data is the challenge, but some have
succeeded by digitizing impressions or teeth directly. I've seen Actua concept
models of teeth that are used like plaster models made from impressions!
Suprisingly enough these models of the exterior surfaces of teeth are relatively
cheap (<$75).
Regards,
Andy Christensen
Medical Modeling Corporation
17301 W. Colfax Ave., Ste. 300
Golden, CO 80401 USA
303/273-5344
303/277-9472 fax
For more information about the rp-ml, see http://ltk.hut.fi/rp-ml/
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