Patent ID: 8543234

Claim:
A computer system for dental implant treatment planning and surgical guide design and manufacturing, comprising a) a computer hardware system with an operation system, b) an implant planning software system installed on said computer and run in the RAM of the computer, c) a data input means to make image data and any geometric models acquired by CT scanners and optical scanners available to the treatment planning software, d) a software component to process and transfer said image data and geometric models into graphical display in the computer monitor, e) a software component to simulate implant placement by placing and visualizing digital models of implants with said image data and said display, f) a software component to combine image data and geometric models, as well as the parameters of said implants, and further to generate a surgical guide model for the said image data, g) a rapid prototyping equipment, h) a means to send said surgical guide into the manufacturing equipment, where the surgical guide is manufactured, wherein improvements include a) fully data associativity throughout the data models from planning to design and manufacturing, b) a means to update data that will propagate any changes in the image processing and implant placement into surgical guide design and then into the manufacturing equipment, c) an integrated means to navigate and manage treatment planning and surgical guide design in a single user interface widget, d) a means to design surgical guides according to surgical kit, e) a boundary representation based approach to represent geometric models throughout treatment planning, surgical guide design and manufacturing, and integrate the components, whereby treatment planning, surgical guide design and manufacturing are integrated into one integral workflow and one computer system, and no external means to process any of the data or models is needed.