Patent ID: 7766653

Claim:
A method of selecting orthodontic brackets for an orthodontic brace comprising: providing digital tooth data representative of a number of teeth of a dental arch; receiving input from a practitioner specifying data for a prescription for a set brackets of an orthodontic brace for at least some of the teeth in the dental arch; executing a computer program that determines resulting positions of the teeth as they might appear when the brace is mounted on corresponding teeth using at least in part the digital tooth data and the data relating to the prescription; providing a library of available brackets including prescription data in memory relating to at least one aspect of each bracket; after determining the resulting positions of the teeth, executing the computer program to compare the prescription data specified by the practitioner for the set of brackets of the brace with the prescription data of the available brackets in the library; and executing the computer program to select the brackets in the library that have prescription data that best matches the prescription data of the set of brackets of the orthodontic brace.