Patent ID: 7536234

Claim:
A method for manufacturing a dental prosthesis having a layer of material, said prosthesis for mounting in an intraoral cavity, the method comprising: (i) digitally mapping at least an area of the intraoral cavity in which the prosthesis is to be mounted; (ii) creating an idealized three-dimensional surface profile for said layer based on a digital map provided in (i); (iii) providing said layer of material on a workpiece, said layer of a material comprising an outer surface; (iv) for said layer of material: performing a mapping operation to determine a three-dimensional shape of said outer surface of the corresponding layer of material; subjecting said layer of material to a material removing operation comprising machining paths to form the corresponding prosthesis layer; wherein the machining paths are computer-controlled on the basis of local differences between said three dimensional shape and said idealized three-dimensional surface profile for the corresponding said layer, and optimized to reduce machining times.