Patent ID: 8011925

Claim:
A method of locating a dental implant analog in a modified stone model for use in creating a tooth prosthesis comprising the acts of: taking an impression of a mouth including a first installation site having a dental implant installed in the first installation site and a gingival healing abutment having at least one informational marker, the gingival healing abutment being attached to the dental implant; preparing a stone model based on the impression, the stone model including at least one tooth model corresponding to at least one tooth in the mouth and model markers indicative of the at least one informational marker; scanning the stone model; generating scan data from the scanning of the stone model; transferring the scan data to a CAD program; creating a three-dimensional computer model of the installation site on the CAD program using the scan data; determining the at least one informational marker to gather information about the location of the dental implant; developing custom-abutment dimensional information based on the three-dimensional computer model and the at least one informational marker; developing overmold rapid prototype dimensional information based on the three-dimensional computer model and the abutment dimensional information; transferring the overmold rapid prototype dimensional information to a rapid prototyping machine; and fabricating an overmold rapid prototype, the overmold rapid prototype adapted to receive a custom abutment developed from the custom-abutment dimensional information, the custom abutment having an implant analog attached, the overmold rapid prototype having structural features allowing the overmold rapid prototype to be registered on the at least one tooth model of the modified stone model at a specific location such that the implant analog is located at a position corresponding to the position of the dental implant in the patient's mouth.