Custom orthodontic appliance forming method and apparatus

A method of fabricating a custom orthodontic appliance to move teeth of a patient from pre-appliance positions in which teeth of the patient are malocclused in the mouth of a patient toward post-appliance positions in which the teeth of the patient are post-appliance, the method comprising the steps of:

• sensing anatomical shapes from the mouth of the patient;
• digitizing the sensed anatomical shapes and producing thereby signals containing digitized anatomical shape data including three dimensional tooth shape data representing shapes of individual teeth of the patient;
• deriving a dental archform from the digitized anatomical shape data contained in the signals on a digital computer to produce a digitized mathematical archform model that is at least in part dependent on the digitized anatomical shape data;
• deriving, on the computer, post-appliance positions for the teeth, from the digitized anatomical shape data and the digitized mathematical archform model to locate the teeth along the derived dental archform and to position and orient the teeth relative to the derived ideal dental archform and to each other in the post-appliance positions based at least in part upon the three dimensional tooth shape data for the respective individual teeth;
• designing a custom orthodontic appliance with a digital computer from the digitized three dimensional tooth shape data and the derived post-appliance positions such that the custom orthodontic appliance has an appliance configuration dimensioned to interconnect the teeth and urge the teeth toward the derived post-appliance positions;
• producing machine readable control signals containing geometric information correlated to the results of the appliance designing step;
• and
• automatically fabricating a custom orthodontic appliance with a machine responsive to the machine readable control signals to shape the appliance according to the geometric information contained in the control signals so as to form the custom orthodontic appliance having the appliance configuration such that, when applied to the teeth, the appliance is effective to move the teeth from pre-appliance positions to the post-appliance positions.

A method of making a custom orthodontic appliance for moving teeth that are initially in pretreatment positions of malocclusion in the mouth of a patient toward treatment positions tending to correct the malocclusion, from pre-appliance positions to post-appliance positions, the method comprising:

• scanning the teeth in their pretreatment positions of malocclusion to generate 3-D data of the shapes of the teeth;
• processing the generated 3-D data in a computer to determine treatment positions of the teeth on a dental arch that will tend to correct the malocclusion and generating data of the determined treatment positions;
• further processing in a computer the generated data and thereby designing a custom orthodontic appliance for moving the teeth of the patient toward the determined treatment positions from pre-appliance positions to post-appliance positions, the designing of the appliance including:
• defining 3-D data correlated to three dimensional contact surfaces of the appliance conforming to three dimensional areas on the teeth, at least some of said areas to be contacted by contact surfaces of the appliance to locate the appliance on the teeth, and
• defining data correlated to arcuate structure of the appliance for generating forces to urge the teeth to relative locations on the dental arch corresponding to the post-appliance positions;
• processing 3-D data correlated to the contact surfaces and data correlated to the arcuate structure to operate a manufacturing apparatus to create structural shapes based on the defined data correlated to the three dimensional contact surfaces;
• and
• manufacturing positioning jigs having the three dimensional contact surfaces thereon for locating the components on three dimensional areas of the teeth.