Patent ID: 7065243

Claim:
A method for creating a dental model from image parameters obtained from a series of overlapping images of an intra-oral object, said method comprising the steps of: (a) capturing the series of overlapping images of the intra-oral object and a 3-dimensional control target from a plurality of different capture positions via an imaging process utilizing a sensor, where the object includes common surface features, wherein said control target is comprised of rigid lengths of material arranged in three dimensions with respect to the object to provide control features comprising vertices between the rigid lengths; (b) measuring the control features from the images of the control target and the object; (c) analytically generating a 3-dimensional model of the object by photogrammetrically adjusting the image parameters according to a multiray stereo intersection process by using the measurements of the control features to compute object-space coordinates of any object point which is imaged in the overlapping images from varying capture orientations, thereby providing a photogrammetrically aligned 3-dimensional model of the object that has been processed with an analytical representation of a physical model which represents the imaging process of the sensor that captured the images thereby reducing image errors due to the imaging process including the variable orientations of the capture positions; and (d) adjusting the photogrammetrically aligned 3-dimensional model of the object by aligning the common features of the model to like features in the image of the object, thereby producing an aligned dental model from the series of images.