The virtual articulator - Applying VR technologies to dentistry

The use of Virtual Reality (VR) techniques for Computer-Aided Diagnosis is revolutionizing the medical routing in various medical disciplines. Especially in the field of dentistry VR in combination with CAD/CAM technologies offers a high potential for implant planning/design resulting in a higher accuracy and a shorter therapy time period. The geometry of the teeth is recognisable and digitisable using an intraoral camera, the implant models can be designed with specialized CAD systems and the final implants are generated using a CNC machine. In this context the "Virtual Articualtor" (VA) completes the digital manufacturing pipeline and offers the possibility to consider patient-specific jaw biomechanics in the implant generation process. The objective of this project is the development of a system for dental occlusion diagnosis. For this important diagnosis in today's dental routine the mechanical articulator is used. The VA simulates and augments the functionalities of the mechanical articulator. Therefore it takes a digital 3-D representation of the jaws as input data, generates a simulation of the jaw movements, and delivers a dynamical visualization of the occlusion points. The high technical demands to the system are given through the high accuracy necessary for dental applications and the large models that have to be handled in the system.