Method and apparatus for electronic delivery of electronic model images

A method of manufacturing a dental appliance, the method comprising:

• a) generating a plurality of first electronic model images on a computer at a first location, the computer having a processor and memory configured to store instructions for generating the first electronic model images, the processor of the computer being configured to implement the instructions for generating, each of the first electronic model images representing a dentition of a patient, each of the patients being associated with an end user, each of the first electronic model images being generated based at least partially on scanned positional data of the dentition of the respective patient;
• b) delivering the first electronic model images from the computer at the first location to a remote computer at a second location over a network, the second location being remote from the first location;
• c) retrieving at a user computer at least a portion of the first electronic model images from the remote computer at the second location, the portion of the first electronic models representing dentitions of patients associated with the same end user, the user computer having a processor and memory configured to store instructions for manipulating the first electronic model images, the processor of the user computer being configured to implement the instructions stored in the memory of the user computer;
• and
• d) manipulating the first electronic model images to create a plurality of second electronic model images on the user computer, each of the second electronic model images being generated based at least partially on the respective first electronic model image for use in a further operation.