Three-dimensional dental cast analyzing system using laser scanning

The purpose of this article is to introduce the outline of our newly developed three-dimensional dental cast analyzing system with laser scanning, and its preliminary clinical applications. The system is composed of a measuring device with a slit-ray laser projector and two sets of coupled charged devised video cameras, an image processing unit, a 16-bit personal computer as a controller, and an engineering workstation as a post processor. The dental cast is projected and scanned with a slit-ray laser beam. The raster coordinates of the target are determined with an image processor. Triangulation is applied to determine the location of each point. Generation of three-dimensional graphics of the dental cast takes approximately 40 minutes. About 90,000 sets of X, Y, Z coordinates are stored in the main memory of the microcomputer. The measurement error is less than 0.05 mm. Besides the conventional linear and angular measurements of the dental cast, we are also able to demonstrate the size of the palatal surface area and the volume of the oral cavity. The advantage of this system is that it facilitates the otherwise complicated and time-consuming mock surgery necessary for treatment planning in orthognathic surgery.