Patent ID: 7623942

Claim:
A dental CAD/CAM system, said system comprising: a three dimensional measuring camera for measuring a three-dimensional shape of a basic dental structure; a measuring camera with an optical sensor for measuring relevant optical properties of said basic dental structure and relevant optical properties of a desired appearance; a dental restoration body construction unit having instructions effective to generate a dataset, said dataset further comprising a desired shape of a dental restoration body to be constructed in association with the measured three dimensional shape of the basic dental structure and a thickness of said dental restoration body for at least one area that is representative of an appearance of said dental restoration body applied on said basic dental structure; a first data storage area storing reference data of relevant optical properties of different translucent dental materials; a second data storage area storing data concerning a dependency between relevant optical properties of said basic dental structure, values of said relevant optical properties of the desired appearance, said thickness of said restoration body and relevant optical properties of said translucent dental materials, an interface for receiving target values of said desired appearance of said restoration body, said optical properties of said basic dental structure and said thickness of said restoration body; and a calculation unit effective to determine an appropriate translucent dental material for use in said dental restoration body based upon said reference data and said dependency.