Systems and methods for customizing orthodontic treatment and treatment planning

A method comprising:

• presenting a dental practitioner with a graphical user interface comprising a first window including a menu of textual rules specific to orthodontic treatment planning, wherein the rules refer to a collection of instructions in a domain-specific treatment language;
• receiving, from the dental practitioner, selections from the menu of textural rules to form a practitioner-specific subset of textural rules;
• reconciling any conflict between the rules of the practitioner-specific subset of textural rules;
• applying the practitioner-specific subset of textural rules to a test dental data set to generate a test treatment plan;
• displaying the test treatment plan to the dental practitioner in a second window, wherein the second window displays an image of teeth corresponding to the test dental data set at one or more stages of the test treatment plan;
• modifying, based on input from the dental practitioner, the practitioner-specific subset of textural rules;
• and
• generating a treatment plan specific to a patient by applying the practitioner-specific subset of textural rules to the patient's dental data.

A method of generating a treatment plan for an orthodontic treatment, the method comprising:

• presenting a clinician with predefined treatment parameters for generating a treatment plan, wherein the predefined treatment parameters comprise a data structure in a dental protocol language;
• accepting, through a user interface, one or more modifications to the predefined treatment parameters;
• appending the one or more modifications to the data structure as a higher layer;
• transferring the data structure and a digital model of a patient's teeth to a treatment plan generating module, wherein the treatment plan generating module modifies the treatment parameters based on the higher layer and generates a modified set of treatment parameters;
• and
• displaying the treatment plan to the clinician for approval.