Patent ID: 8577493

Claim:
A method for manufacturing a dental prosthesis, comprising: receiving a three dimensional data indicative of a patient's oral cavity; generating based on the three dimensional data a dentition model so as to identify a prosthesis preparation and external surface shape geometry of a prosthesis coupling portion of the preparation; generating, based on the dentition model, prosthesis data comprising three dimensional shape data of a preparation coupling portion of the prosthesis, wherein the preparation coupling portion is configured for coupling the prosthesis and the preparation, the prosthesis data further comprising three dimensional shape data of an external surface of the prosthesis configured to match adjacent teeth in the patient's oral cavity; and transmitting prosthesis data for manufacture of the prosthesis such that the coupling portion of the prosthesis and coupling portion of the preparation have a predetermined criteria comprising a fitting tolerance in a predetermined range of dimensional accuracy, wherein manufacturing the prosthesis according to the predetermined criteria is shared among a service center and a dental lab, wherein the prosthesis data comprises a surface feature located on the coupling portion of the prosthesis and having a geometry configured to maintain proper spatial alignment between the coupling portion of the prosthesis and the external surface of the prosthesis.