Rich Rosenblatt What should one do when creating a crown on a tooth that does not have an opposing tooth to occlude against? I have seen this question a lot on the boards lately so I thought I would briefly discuss this as my blog topic this week.
I find that the problem that many people run into is that they take the prep arch photos as well as the opposing and the buccal bite images. The computer then tries to create a restoration and have it contact something on the opposing.
An important concept to remember is that the machine does not know what a tooth is. It does not know what occlusion is. The software basically knows it has data points that are supposed to touch other data points. When we take the opposing arch and buccal bite images, the machine wants to create a crown and have it occlude against something. If there is no opposing tooth – that means that it will possibly create the occlusion against the gingival tissue, and then the result is a long crown proposal.
There is a very simple solution for this. What works best for me is not taking the opposing arch or buccal bite images. When we choose Biogeneric Individual, we have the option initially to only take images in the arch that we are proposing a restoration in. We do not need to take images in other catalogs in order to get a proposal. The machine will now look at the teeth on either side of the preparation and try to create a restoration with similar cusp heights, fissure depths, contours and marginal ridges. Since there is no opposing tooth, we are not worried at all about contact. The proposals always look better, and it certainly is faster since we only need to take images in the arch that we are preparing.
Give it a shot!
