In the past 10 years, the dental industry has revolutionized with 3D printing technology.

From stable broken teeth to dental floss, several different application fields of 3D printing have been developed and designed. The most common technologies for dental 3D are stereolithography (SLA) 、 digital light processing (DLP) and selective area light curing technology (LCD). According to the application field, different resins are used in different fields.

Dentists have found many ways to implement 3D printing in their work. Here are some examples:

Night guard and aligner：

The most common applications of 3D printing in dentistry are fully transparent aligners and night protective devices. This process requires a dentist or orthodontist to scan a patient's teeth, and then apply domain software to generate a 3D solid model of his teeth.

In order to make a model, two methods are generally used. The first is to print the solid model of the patient's teeth as is. In this case, the application field vacuum forms a plastic sheet on the solid model. It will be the aligner later. Second, the doctor can also use the solid model of the patient's teeth to model the aligner itself, and then print it out. This will require an Ultra HD dental 3D printer with special resin.

The main advantage of using 3D printing to produce night protection and aligners is speed. Mass production takes only a few hours. The technology also makes each product more accurate because it is created by accurately scanning the patient's teeth.

Crown：

When you break a tooth, the dentist creates a crown to replace the broken part. The traditional process is very time-consuming and expensive. We use 3D printing to make it very easy to make crowns. First, the doctor will scan the broken teeth, and then use the software to create a model of the crown. They can use special resin or CNC technology to make porcelain crowns in the office in less than 30 minutes.

Surgical guide：

Oral surgery must be very precise. With dental 3D printing, the doctor only needs to scan the patient's mouth, then design a model similar to an aligner, and then accurately open the mouth where the operation is performed. We can use the same resin as the locator and night guard for printing.

Dental model：

In the dental field, it is very important to do things well at the first time, and the dental 3D printer can ensure this. Doctors can print a model of a patient's mouth and verify that their implants, crowns or aligners are accurate.

3D printed dental models are easy to manufacture. They just need to scan the patient's mouth quickly. Nevertheless, they are still powerful tools for dentists because they can check their work before they are surgically implanted into patients. And these models are not actually put in your mouth, so they don't need any technology or resin. They are very simple and useful.