Patent ID: 6697164
Filing Date: 2004-02-24
Classification: A61B,A61C,G01B,G16H

Abstract:
An apparatus for determining surface topology of a teeth portion, comprising:a probing member with a sensing end face for placing proximal to the teeth portion; an illumination unit for providing an array of incident light beams transmitted towards the teeth portion along an optical path through said probing unit to generate illuminated spots on said portion; a light focusing optics defining one or more focal planes forward said end face at a position changeable by said optics, each light beam having its focus on one of said focal planes; a translation mechanism for displacing the focal planes relative to the teeth portion along an axis defined by the propagation of the incident light beams; a detector having an array of sensing elements for measuring intensity of each of a plurality of imaging light beams returning from said spots propagating along an optical path opposite to that of the incident light beams; a mirror disposed between said illumination unit and said light focusing optics, the mirror having a central aperture and being capable of passing said incident light beams towards said light focusing optics and of reflecting said imaging light beams towards said detector by an area of the mirror surrounding said aperture; a processor coupled to said detector for determining for each light beam a spot-specific position, being the position of the respective focal plane of said one or more focal planes yielding maximum measured intensity of the returned light beam, and based on the determined spot-specific positions, generating data representative of the topology of said portion.