Patent ID: 8013853

Claim:
A computerized method of representing a virtual dental patient, the method comprising: receiving a set of clinical records of a patient; receiving at least one jaw movement record; and determining by one or more processors at least one helical axis using the set of clinical records and the at least one jaw movement record, wherein the at least one helical axis is determined in accordance with at least a first jaw position and a second jaw position in the at least one jaw movement record, and further wherein the at least one helical axis controls the motions of a lower jaw data set relative to an upper jaw set; wherein the at least one jaw movement record comprises a functionally generated path (FGP), said FGP representing a plurality of lower jaw positions and wherein determining at least one helical axis comprises: determining a control point in a set of target points on the FGP, the control point and the target points comprising points in the lower jaw data set; aligning a first position of the FGP to an upper jaw data set; determining a first location for the set of target points on the first position of the FGP; selecting a step direction; and for each of a subset of the plurality of positions in the FGP performing the tasks of: determining a next position by stepping along the FGP in the step direction; aligning the new position to the FGP, determining a next location for the set of target points, and determining a helical axis parameter set from the first location and the next location, the helical axis parameter set including at least one parameter determined as a function of the control point.