Purpose: To compare the accuracy of three commercially available intraoral scanners when imaging various dental material substrates.

Materials and methods: A maxillary dentate typodont model with 11 different dental material substrates was prepared and scanned using three intraoral scanners (TRIOS 3, 3Shape; CS 3600, Carestream; and Emerald S, Planmeca). The model was further scanned with a laboratory scanner (7series, Dental Wings) for reference. Files were exported in standard tessellation language format and inserted into a metrology 3D mesh software (CloudCompare).

Results: In terms of influence of different substrates on IOS trueness, a significant effect on the performance of TRIOS 3 and Emerald S was revealed. Concerning the accuracy of different intraoral scanners when scanning more translucent and reflective materials, pairwise comparisons revealed significant differences among scanners. In terms of complete-arch trueness and precision, pairwise comparisons revealed that TRIOS 3 had significantly higher trueness and precision compared to CS3600 and Emerald S. The complete-arch trueness and precision of CS3600 and Emerald S did not differ significantly.

Conclusions: Dental material substrates influenced the accuracy of all three tested scanners. The full metal crown exhibited significantly lower trueness compared to other substrates across all three scanners. For the high-translucency substrate group, TRIOS 3 exhibited significantly higher trueness compared to CS 3600. Polished and unpolished class II amalgam restorations of similar dimensions did not exhibit significant differences in trueness regardless of intraoral scanner. In terms of complete-arch accuracy, TRIOS 3 had significantly higher trueness and precision compared to CS 3600 and Emerald S. All three scanners exhibited complete-arch average accuracy below 100 μm.