Related Experiment Video
Updated: Feb 14, 2026

Accuracy in Dental Medicine, A New Way to Measure Trueness and Precision
Published on: April 29, 2014
Three-dimensional comparative study on the accuracy and reproducibility of dental casts fabricated by 3D printers
1Postdoctoral student, Department of Prosthodontics, College of Dentistry, Dankook University, Cheonan, Republic of Korea.
Statement Of Problem:
Studies investigating the precision of 3-dimensional (3D) printed casts for fixed prosthodontics are scarce.
Purpose:
The purpose of this in vitro study was to compare the accuracy and reproducibility of dental casts made by the conventional method and by 3D printing.
Material And Methods:
A master model was designed and fabricated with polyetherketoneketone. Ten specimens were fabricated with Type IV dental stone with polyvinyl siloxane. A light scanner was used to scan the master model, and the data were converted to standard tessellation language (STL) files. Three different types of 3D printers (Objet EDEN260V, ProMaker D35, and LC-3Dprint) were used to make 10 specimens each. All specimens were scanned by the light scanner, and the scanned files were superimposed on the files of the master model with specialized software to analyze the volumetric changes. The Kruskal-Wallis test, Mann-Whitney U tests, and Bonferroni method were performed with statistical analysis software (α=.05).
Results:
The volumetric changes in casts made by the conventional method and by the 3D printers were significantly different. The conventional casts showed smaller volumetric change than the 3D-printed casts. Significant differences (P<.05) were found among the different types of 3D printers. The ultraviolet-polymerizing polymer with digital light processing exhibited the smallest volumetric change. In 3D color maps, the deformations were in similar patterns with all the 3D printers.
Conclusions:
The conventional method of die fabrication was more reliable than that of 3D printers.
Related Concept Videos
Uncertainty in Measurement: Accuracy and Precision
Improving Translational Accuracy
Improving Translational Accuracy
Accuracy and Precision
Accuracy, limits, and approximation
Accuracy is defined as the closeness of the measured value to the true or actual value. In engineering mechanics, repeated measurements are taken during theoretical or experimental analyses to ensure that the result is precise and accurate.
The accuracy of any solution is based on the...
Comparing Copy Number Variations and SNPs
Copy number variations or CNVs are the structural variations that cover more than 1kb of DNA sequence. The single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), on the other hand, is a single nucleotide change or a point mutation that is found in more than 1%...

