What exactly is Digital Smile Design and how does it differ to traditional dentistry plans?
Digital Smile Design is a facially generated holistic way of looking at a patient and providing natural solutions that are incomplete harmony with the patients’ personality. Digital technology allows a dentist to digitise a patient, using intra-oral scans, digital X-rays, face scanning, photography and video and cone beam CT. These records can be layered, creating a 3 dimensional view of the patient in a way that traditional dentistry doesn’t allow. The result, when combined with a dental risk assessment called the Dental Fingerprint, provides an incredible view of the patients concerns and smile potential.
The visual information provides enormous visibility for both patient and dentist, and very high levels of accuracy. It’s also comfortable and seamless for the patient. The whole concept is based upon the analysis of the patients’ facial and dental proportions, using a predetermined series of high-quality digital photographs and videos that allow us to understand the relationship between teeth, gums, lips and smile with the facial features in motion and the patients’ facial gestures.
The battery of diagnostic tests and digitised records are transferred to 3D using our software. Then, our multidisciplinary team will study and work on each case to propose the best choice of a comprehensive treatment plan.
Why do patient’s love it?
There are no surprises from planning to delivery. That anxiety that many customers have about how teeth will look in the final result is eliminated. What we design is what we deliver and DSD allows us to create very natural shapes at the beginning, and deliver exactly the same thing in the end. We love the visibility across layers of digital information and see more than we ever could using analogue technology.
The degree of visualization for the customer is quite remarkable. When we take a face scan, and can rotate a true render of the face, marry it with a digitally designed new smile, layer all of this information to let the patient see the impact and comment from any angle – customers are involved, We can copy nature and love the shapes and texture that scanning and milling allows us to reproduce. Patients are excited and delighted by the process and outcome.
3D Printing
Once we have a 3D printed design it can be created in the mouth, giving a true, smiling, talking render of the final dentistry.