The conventional fabrication of complete dentures involves two separate clinical sessions for functional impression making and jaw registration. The presented method combines both procedures in one session. The aim of this study was to survey the three-dimensional tooth positions in complete dentures with reference to the ridges to establish arbitrary guideline values that could be used for the manufacturing of tooth-position analogue plastic rims on functional impression trays. New complete dentures were fabricated by supervised undergraduate students in the conventional manner for 104 edentulous patients. The position of the maxillary teeth was surveyed in the horizontal plane using the Schmuth 'vizor-measuring plate'. The vertical dimension of occlusion, represented as the distance between opposing ridge areas of the dentures in maximum intercuspation, was measured at different sites by means of a Gutowski gauge. The tooth positions on the dentures varied widely, e.g. the horizontal distances between the incisive papilla and the maxillary incisors was 7.1 +/- 2.3 (3-14) mm. The vertical dimension of occlusion, which is most important in the jaw registration, varied equally with an anterior inter-alveolar distance between 12 and 33 (20.4 +/- 4.0) mm. Arbitrary moulding of the tooth position-analogue plastic rims does not seems to be an ideal method of pre-shaping functional impression trays, because the individual anatomical variation is considerable. Alternatively, the horizontal and vertical tooth positions of functionally and aesthetically pleasing dentures should be measured to pre-shape the rims of functional impression trays in the maxillary and the mandibular jaw. Such trays are a valuable tool for functional impressions and an immediate preliminary jaw registration in the fabrication of new complete dentures. This method allows a first try-in of the full set-up in the third clinical visit without loosing precision.