Compact intraoral 3D-scanner and a method of optimizing such

A method for optimizing a compact intraoral 3D-scanner, comprising the steps of:

• providing an optical system for the compact intraoral 3D-scanner, the compact intraoral 3D scanner comprising:
• a detector, defined by a horizontal sensor size, Hsensor, wherein Hsensor is less than 10 mm, and wherein the detector comprising an array of pixels, each pixel defined by a pixel width, dpixel;
• one or more optical elements defining a field-of-view, HFOV, which is related to the sensor size by HFOV=m Hsensor, wherein m is the magnification being larger than m=1.5;
• a light source for emitting light defined by at least a primary wavelength λ, whereby the compact intraoral 3D-scanner is configured for irradiating an intraoral object with the light;
• a beam splitter in optical communication with the light source, the one or more optical element(s), and the detector, wherein the one or more optical element(s) is/are configured for shifting a focal plane of the light at the intraoral object, the focal plane being defined by the object-space numerical aperture, NAobject, of the one or more optical element(s),
• selecting an object-space numerical aperture for the compact intraoral 3D-scanner, defined in terms of the depth-of-field (DOFobject) by NAobj2=λ/DOFobject;
• characterized in that
• optimizing the compact intraoral 3D-scanner by selecting the pixel width, dpixel, of the imaging sensor to be:
• dpixel=λ((1+1/m))/(mξNAobj), where ξ is 0.20≤ξ≤0.6, such that the pixel-width, dpixel, is less than 10 microns.