System and method for detecting deviations during the course of an orthodontic treatment to gradually reposition teeth

A system for detecting deviation in a patient's teeth during a planned orthodontic treatment for the patient, the system comprising:

• a computer comprising a display, processor, and storage media comprising instructions that, when executed, cause the computer to:
• receive an un-segmented current teeth image representing a patient's teeth after the planned orthodontic treatment has begun and before the planned orthodontic treatment ends;
• pre-process the un-segmented current teeth image so as to assign each of a plurality of teeth in the un-segmented current teeth image with a unique current teeth image identifier selected based on an anatomical feature of the respective tooth;
• perform an initial comparison of the un-segmented current teeth image with a previously segmented teeth model by aligning each unique current teeth image identifier of the un-segmented current teeth image with a corresponding unique previously segmented model identifier assigned to a tooth of the previously segmented teeth model;
• after performing the initial comparison of the un-segmented current teeth image with the previously segmented teeth model, determine a positional deviation between the un-segmented current teeth image and the previously segmented teeth model for each of one or more teeth in the previously segmented teeth model;
• and
• generate a corrected stage model by using the determined one or more positional deviations to modify the previously segmented teeth model to reposition each of the one or more teeth in the previously segmented teeth model to match the un-segmented current teeth image.