Dental framework

A method of creating a dental framework having a plurality of mating surfaces configured to engage a corresponding plurality of anchors in a patient's jaw bone, the method comprising the steps of:

• attaching a coping to each of said anchors;
• forming an impression of said patient's mouth in which said copings are embedded;
• attaching an analog to each of said copings;
• forming a stone cast from said impression in which said analogs are embedded;
• attaching a fitting to each of said analogs;
• connecting said fittings with a bridging structure of at least one material to form a wax-up framework, said wax-up framework representing a physical model of a finished framework;
• digitally scanning said wax-up framework coupled to said stone cast with said fittings attached to said analogs to generate a wax-up framework and stone cast point cloud dataset;
• digitally scanning said wax-up framework to generate a wax-up framework point cloud dataset;
• attaching alignment posts having surface extensions to each of said analogs embedded in said stone cast;
• digitally scanning said surface extensions and said stone cast to generate an alignment post and stone cast point cloud dataset;
• aligning said point cloud datasets using features common to said point cloud datasets;
• creating a first digital surface model of said wax-up framework from said wax-up framework point cloud dataset;
• deriving the relative positions and orientations of said mating surfaces from said point cloud datasets;
• combining said first digital surface model of said wax-up framework and said mating surfaces to generate a second digital surface model of said framework;
• creating a tool path based on said second digital surface model for manufacture of said framework;
• and manufacturing said framework in accordance with said toolpath.

A method of creating a dental framework having a plurality of anchor mating surfaces configured to engage mating surfaces of a corresponding plurality of anchors in a jaw bone of a patient from a stone cast of the patient's mouth and a wax-up framework, the stone cast having analogs embedded therein representing the exact positions and orientations of the anchor mating surfaces, the method comprising the steps of:

• creating a digital representation of said patient's mouth including soft tissue contours associated with said jaw bone and further including the position and orientation of each said anchor mating surface in relation to each other and further in relation to said soft tissue contours;
• said position and orientation obtained from said stone case of said patient;
• creating a digital representation of the surface of said framework based upon said wax-up framework;
• creating a digital representation of the surface of said wax-up framework coupled with said stone cast;
• aligning said digital representations using features common to said digital representations;
• aligning a digital parameterized fitting to said digital representation of the position and orientation of each anchor mating surface;
• combining said digital parameterized fitting with said digital representation of said wax-up framework to form a final digital representation of said framework;
• creating a tool path based on said final digital representation of said framework for manufacture of said framework;
• and
• manufacturing said framework in accordance with said toolpath.