Direct Digital Manufacturing of Complex Dental Prostheses

Over the last decadeReverse Engineering, Computer-AidedDesign, ComputerAided Manufacturing and Rapid Prototyping (RE, CAD, CAM, RP) have been applied to medicine and dentistry (Gibson, 2005). Diagnostic tools have become increasingly more sophisticated and medical imaging technology can now present patient data with high precision. Virtual planning environments allow data visualization and manipulation. Many dedicated CAD/CAM systems were introduced to the medical and dental community (Rudolph et al., 2003). With RP there came a way to produce custom physical models of patient anatomy providing doctors the means for tactile interaction which facilitates preoperative planning of complex surgeries. In addition, RP-generated replicas act often as basis for customization of treatment devices such as craniofacial plates. RP-techniques are also used to create custom treatment aides such as dental drilling guides (Ref. Materialise website) that transfer the digital planning to the patient in a reliable way. Because of cost advantages and standardizing possibilities it’s clear that digitizing and automation have gained an important place in the fabrication of medical products. However, many dental metal parts are still being produced by manual and inefficient conventional methods. Offering a digital solution to the dental profession implies a real challenge because patient and dentist set high requirements on quality, material and precision. No existing CAD/CAM system can totally replace the traditional dental practices, but emerging technologies may expand the capabilities of future systems (Strub et al., 2006). In recent years, Rapid Prototyping evolved to Rapid Manufacturing (RM) because of technical improvements of Layer Manufacturing (LM) processes and due to the possibility to process all kinds of metals (Levy et al., 2003).