A New Concept for the Integration of Dynamic Occlusion in the Digital Construction Process

Major advances have been made in dental computer-assisted design and manufacturing (CAD/CAM) technology in recent years. New developments in intraoral optical scanning systems make it possible to rapidly obtain three-dimensional images and measurements of the jaw and entire quadrants, including the prepared teeth, neighboring teeth, and opposing dentition. In addition, the static relationship of the maxillary and mandibular teeth to one another can easily be determined by means of intraoral bite registrations or buccal scans. This information is the starting point for the implementation of digital occlusal surface design and surface reconstruction. Here, too, the knowledge-based concept of biogenerics has crystallized into a new method in which restoration proposals suitable for each individual case are automatically computed by the software. Consequently, the time required to manually edit the digital model has been significantly reduced or completely eliminated. In its current form, the digital workflow still lacks a strategy for integrating the dynamic occlusion into the restoration design with high precision and in a time-saving manner. The preliminary results of new digital concepts and approaches to solving this problem will be presented in this article. Keywords: Virtual articulation, functional bite registration, functionally generated path, virtual FGP, average-value articulation