In the past 10 years, the dental industry has already revolutionized the 3D printing technology using dental 3D printers. From stable broken teeth to application areas of dental floss, several different application areas of 3D printing have been developed and designed. The most common techniques for dental 3D are stereolithography (SLA) and digital light processing (DLP). According to the application field, different resins in the application field.

Dentists have discovered many ways to implement 3D printing into their work. Below I will introduce some examples of PioNext's 3D printing applications in dentistry:

1. Aligner

The most common applications of 3D printing in dentistry are fully transparent aligners and night guards. This process requires a dentist or orthodontist to scan the 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 a solid model of the patient's teeth as it is. In this case, the application field vacuum forms a plastic sheet on the solid model. Will become the aligner later. Second, the doctor can also use the physical model of the patient's teeth to model the aligner itself, and then print it out. This will require ultra-high-definition dental 3D printers with special resins.

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

2. Crown

When you break a tooth, the dentist will create a crown to replace the broken part. The traditional process is very time-consuming and expensive. We use 3D printing to make crowns very easy. First, the doctor will scan the broken tooth, 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.

3. Surgery

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.

4. Model

In the dental field, it is very important to do things right the first time, and dental 3D printers can ensure this. Doctors can print a model of the patient’s mouth and verify the accuracy of their implants, crowns or aligners.

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