Abstract
Surgeon dentists usually rely on their experiential judgments from patients' oral plaster casts and medical images to determine the positional and directional information of implant fixtures and to perform drilling tasks during dental implant surgical operations. This approach, however, may cause some errors and deteriorate the quality of dental implants. Computer-aided methods have been introduced as supportive tools to alleviate the shortcomings of the conventional approach. In this paper, we present an approach of 3D dental implant simulation which can provide the realistic and immersive experience of dental implant information. The dental implant information is primarily composed of several kinds of 3D mesh models obtained as follows. Firstly, we construct 3D mesh models of jawbones, teeth and nerve curves from the patient's dental images using software $Mimics^{TM}$. Secondly, we construct 3D mesh models of gingival regions from the patient's oral impression using a reverse engineering technique. Thirdly, we select suitable types of implant fixtures from fixture database and determine the positions and directions of the fixtures by using the 3D mesh models and the dental images with software $Simplant^{TM}$. Fourthly, from the geometric and/or directional information of the jawbones, the gingival regions, the teeth and the fixtures, we construct the 3D models of surgical guide stents which are crucial to perform the drilling operations with ease and accuracy. In the application phase, the dental implant information is combined with the tangible interface device to accomplish 3D dental implant simulation. The user can see and touch the 3D models related with dental implant surgery. Furthermore, the user can experience drilling paths to make holes where fixtures are implanted. A preliminary user study shows that the presented approach can be used to provide dental students with good educational contents. With future work, we expect that it can be utilized for clinical studies of dental implant surgery.
