The CAD/CAM computer displays a 3-D custom image of your prepared tooth or teeth obtained by digitally capturing the preparations with an optical scanner. In-Office and Dental Laboratory CAD/CAM Optionsĭental CAD/CAM technology is available for dental practices and dental laboratories, enabling dentists and their staff (or a laboratory technician) to design restorations on a computer screen. Today’s CAD/CAM restorations are better-fitting, more durable and more natural looking (multi-colored and translucent, similar to natural teeth) than previously machined restorations. Dental CAD/CAM also is used to fabricate abutments for dental implants, used to replace missing teeth.Īs the materials and technology available for CAD/CAM dentistry have improved over the years, so too have the restorations that patients can receive from this form of digital dentistry.

Used for decades in the manufacturing industry to produce precision tools, parts and automobiles, CAD/CAM technology has been increasingly incorporated into dentistry over the past 20 years.ĬAD/CAM technology and metal-free materials are used by dentists and dental laboratories to provide patients with milled ceramic crowns, veneers, onlays, inlays and bridges.

In this video from Lori Beckman of Production Machining, the company's founders describe their process, which involves programming with CAMWorks, automated turning on a machine from DN Solutions America, workholding from Royal Products and automated inspection on an Equator system from Renishaw USA.Shaping Dentistry with CAD/CAM TechnologyĬAD/CAM is an acronym for computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing. The company has taken control of its manufacturing with a sophisticated in-house machining process that it continues to refine. High performance bikes need high performance bottom brackets, and BBInfinite makes high performance bottom brackets in Arkansas. Here is an example at the small end: A 'bottom bracket' is the component that holds the crank on a bicycle.

Much of the technology innovation in and around CNC machining in the last decade or so has aimed at making it easier to use, with the result that vertically integrating is a possibility available to a broader range of OEMs. Another broad trend I am seeing in machining and manufacturing: VERTICAL INTEGRATION.

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