Patent ID: 7905726

Claim:
A method of preparing a surgical guide for positioning a dental implant relative to an implant site, said method comprising the steps of: providing an alignment assembly, said alignment assembly including: a mounting member configured to mount to one or more teeth adjacent to an edentulous area of the implant site; a base connected to the mounting member and dimensioned to extend over the edentulous area; a set of translation members having incremental mesio-distal (MD) offsets, each translation member being adjustable with respect to the base; and a rotation member adjustable with respect to a respective one of the translation members, said rotation member including an aperture configured to receive a radiographic marker; inserting the radiographic marker through the rotation member; placing the alignment assembly at the edentulous area where the dental implant is to be placed; adjusting the MD rotational alignment of the radiographic marker while the buccal-lingual (BL) rotational alignment is fixed; adjusting the MD translational alignment of the radiographic marker while the BL rotational alignment is fixed; adjusting the BL rotational alignment of the radiographic marker while the MD rotational alignment is fixed; and adjusting BL translational alignment of the radiographic marker while the MD translational alignment is fixed; wherein the MD translational alignment is adjusted by replacing a first translation member of said set having a first MD offset with a second translation member of said set having a second MD offset to achieve a desired MD offset; wherein the set of translation members and the rotation member are configured such that the rotation member can adjustably translate in a lateral direction relative to a respective one of the translation members for adjustment of the BL translational alignment; and wherein the rotation member is rotationally fixed when laterally adjusted within a respective one of the translation members.