Patent ID: 11972572
Assignee: ALIGN TECHNOLOGY, INC.
Field: Computer technology (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC G  A | IPC A  G

Claim 19:
20. A method comprising:
receiving a plurality of intraoral scans of a dental site;
performing the following operations for each intraoral scan of the plurality of intraoral scans:
processing an input comprising data from the intraoral scan using a trained machine learning model that has been trained to classify regions of dental sites, wherein the trained machine learning model generates an output comprising, for each point in the intraoral scan, an indication as to whether the point belongs to a first dental class or a second dental class;
determining, based on the output, one or more first points in the intraoral scan that are classified as belonging to the first dental class and one or more second points in the intraoral scan that are classified as belonging to the second dental class; and
modifying the intraoral scan by hiding or removing data for the one or more first points that are classified as belonging to the first dental class; and

generating a virtual three-dimensional (3D) model of at least a portion of the dental site based on stitching together modified versions of the plurality of intraoral scans in which the data for the one or more first points classified as belonging to the first dental class has been hidden or removed, wherein the stitching is performed using the one or more second points classified as belonging to the second dental class and without using the one or more first points classified as belonging to the first dental class, and wherein the virtual 3D model lacks the one or more first points classified as belonging to the first dental class.