abstract |
A technique for modeling dental prostheses for a selected posterior tooth is provided. The technique involves selecting a standard tooth form for the tooth from a library of standard tooth forms with a corresponding digital mapping being stored for each form. The stored tooth form is then bilaterally scaled in both the buccal/lingual dimension and the mesial/distal dimension based on measured data for teeth of the patient other than the selected tooth. The stored tooth is also aligned in six dimensions with the proximal and occluding teeth, the six dimensions including angular dimensions to compensate for both the curve of Spee and the curve of Wilson. The depth position of the tooth is obtained by matching mating cusps and grooves and adjusting the tooth position to compensate for the offset and, for mandibular teeth, by adjusting or scaling the height of the buccal cusp to compensate for offsets. The angle of the lingual cusp for mandibular teeth may also be adjusted to take into account functional considerations. |