Patent ID: 9271813
Filing Date: 2016-03-01
CPC Classification: A61C

Claim Text:
1. A method comprising: fabricating an understructure for a dental article using an additive process by forming the understructure from a self-supporting, malleable, curable material; preparing the understructure for painting by partially curing the understructure; milling the understructure to form the understructure for the dental article according to a digital model for the understructure that compensates for a thickness of layers of finish material to be applied to the understructure, the dental article including a volume having a bonding surface shaped to attach to a site in human dentition and a functional surface shaped to replace a dental structure removed from the site; painting a plurality of layers on to the functional surface of the understructure to provide an aesthetic finish using a digitally-controlled paint head and a mounting device collectively operable to move the dental article with three translational degrees of freedom and two rotational degrees of freedom relative to the digitally-controlled paint head; controlling a selection from among at least two paints for application by the digitally-controlled paint head to the understructure, the plurality of layers including layers with varying colors and opacities selected to build a surface closely resembling natural dentition based upon information concerning color captured from a dental patient's natural dentition; and fully curing the understructure.