“The biggest barrier in the dental industry now is training and need or willingness to learn digital workflows,” says Sam Wainwright, Dental Project Manager at Formlabs. “A 3D intraoral scanner is just a tool, and the digital impressions it creates are only as good as the user taking them.”To bridge that gap, the Scan to Model feature converts dental scans directly into printable files. The direct conversion means that users don’t need to use secondary software, or be familiar with CAD modeling; a dentist can upload the raw .stl file from scanning a patient’s mouth and print it directly on Formlabs’ Form 3B printer.

For dentists unfamiliar with CAD software, Scan to Model lets them convert an oral scan directly into a printable model (Image via Formlabs).
“The largest use of 3D printing in the world is a very large dental company that makes over 350,000 horse-shoe arches a day – no other industry comes close,” says Wainwright. But, he emphasizes the need for further development of the software sector, adding, “The digital workflow breaks down if any of those key components [3D printing, 3D intraoral scanners, and dental CAD software] are not yet mature enough, dragging the other parts with it.”
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