CAD/CAM - international magazine of digital dentistry

I 33 industry report _ digital dental equipment & software I CAD/CAM 2_2014 I have been working with digital models for some time and have examined several systems on the market today. I have recently found a great new digital study model system with a host of very “useable” features and the best news of all is that it is very affordable. The Maestro Scanner system consists of a dig- ital 3-D scanner and various software programs so you can easily scan dental models, manipulate the data in various ways and then easily share this data so anyone anywhere with the viewing software can visualise the digital models. The Maestro Scanner is a smartly designed state-of-the-art structured light 3-D scanner. It uses patterns of light and two digital cameras to measure the surface of the model in three- dimensions. Projecting a narrow band of light onto a three-dimensionally shaped surface produces a line of illumination that appears distorted from other perspectives than that of the projector, and can be used for an exact geometric reconstruction of the surface shape. This is the basis of structured light scanning and in this case, uses no lasers so it’s completely safe for anyone to use. It also has great accu- racy and is quite speedy in operation. This type of scanning is used by many dental CAD/CAM manufacturers so the technology is well proven for our market. The Maestro System comes with the Maestro Easy Dental Scan program and I have to say, the name says it all. Put your model into the scanner, click a button or two and you are on your way to a scanned model. However, diving deeper into theprogramallowsyoutouncovermorecomplex features if you wish. It even allows you to scan crown and bridge models and acquire multiple dies (up to 8) in one scan. Some of the more advanced C&B scanners are not able to do this. Remember, digital study models are not just for orthodontic purposes but can be used for all dental models. It’s a great way to diagnose, discuss and store models. The quality of the scans is more than im- pressive with a great amount of detail once the scans are processed. Once you scan the upper and lower models and do a quick occlusal scan, the registering of the scanned models into the correct bite relationship is completely automatic. This is a feature I really like. You can also register the models in various relationships—centric rela- tion; centric occlusion; protrusive or construc- tion bite to name a few. There are also various editing and measuring tools provided and you can do adjustments to the scans if need be. You can save the finished files in industry stan- dard STL or a proprietary ORTHO and ORTHO iPAD file format. File sizes are quite small and easily emailed to clients. One of the additional notable features of Easy Dental Scan is the option to batch scan. Fig. 4_An example of multi dies scanning. Fig. 5_Maestro 3D iPad Viewer. Fig. 6_Main screen of Maestro 3D Ortho Studio. Fig. 4 Fig. 6 Fig. 5 CAD0214_32-34_Whitty 13.05.14 11:22 Seite 2