Patent ID: 6915178

Claim:
A method of manufacturing a pattern of a dental prosthesis from a wax material, comprising the steps of (a) forming a model of a patient's dentition including surfaces corresponding to the dental structure nearby the location that the dental prosthesis is to be placed in the mouth of a patient, (b) scanning said surfaces of the model to collect three dimensional digital data corresponding to the said surfaces, (c) displaying on a monitor screen of computer aided design equipment an image of a proposed dental prosthesis based, at least in part, on the collected three dimensional digital data corresponding to said surfaces, (d) with the aid of said computer aided design equipment, modifying said image so that said image displayed on the monitor screen substantially corresponds to the dental prosthesis to be manufactured, (e) collecting the three dimensional digital data substantially corresponding to said image of said dental prosthesis to be manufactured and transmitting said three dimensional digital data of said image of said dental prosthesis to be manufactured to automated prototyping equipment, (f) using the automated prototyping equipment making from a wax material the pattern of said dental prosthesis to be manufactured based upon said three dimensional digital data substantially corresponding to said image of said dental prosthesis to be manufactured.