Transferring esthetically relevant facial reference lines to the articulator

Over the past decades, although new and often complicated techniques and devices for transferring functional parameters from the patient to an articulator have been developed, there is a lack of generally accepted methods enabling the correct positioning and alignment of anterior teeth in an articulator from an esthetic point of view. The range of options spans simple methods, such as marking casts with reference lines, taking impressions of temporaries previously optimized in the patient's mouth or adjusting an occlusal registration rim with the Candulor bite fork, to more sophisticated technical solutions. This paper will describe and assess the latter with respect to their practicability. Keywords: facial asymmetry, occlusal plane, articulator, anterior esthetics, facebow, linefinder