Intraoral 3D scanner

Here a new set-up of a 3D-scanning system for CAD/CAM in dental industry is proposed. The system is designed for direct scanning of the dental preparations within the mouth. The measuring process is based on phase correlation technique in combination with fast fringe projection in a stereo arrangement. The novelty in the approach is characterized by the following features: A phase correlation between the phase values of the images of two cameras is used for the co-ordinate calculation. This works contrary to the usage of only phase values (phasogrammetry) or classical triangulation (phase values and camera image co-ordinate values) for the determination of the co-ordinates. The main advantage of the method is that the absolute value of the phase at each point does not directly determine the coordinate. Thus errors in the determination of the co-ordinates are prevented. Furthermore, using the epipolar geometry of the stereo-like arrangement the phase unwrapping problem of fringe analysis can be solved. The endoscope like measurement system contains one projection and two camera channels for illumination and observation of the object, respectively. The new system has a measurement field of nearly 25mm × 15mm. The user can measure two or three teeth at one time. So the system can by used for scanning of single tooth up to bridges preparations. In the paper the first realization of the intraoral scanner is described.