Systems and methods for additive manufacturing of ZrO.sub.2 ceramic objects, and in particular ZrO.sub.2-based ceramic dental crowns. A method includes mixing a doped ZrO.sub.2 powder with a photo-curable resin to produce a printing mixture, 3D printing of a dental crown green body structure using the printing mixture, wherein the 3D printing includes an advanced digital light processing (ADLP) process using a gradient printing technique to form a color gradient in the dental crown green body structure, debinding the dental crown green body structure to remove organic polymers using one of a thermal debinding process, an infrared debinding process, and a laser debinding process, sintering the debound dental crown structure to produce a densified dental crown structure using one of a pressureless sintering process, a laser sintering process, and an electric field sintering process, and surface engineering the densified dental crown structure to produce a finished dental crown structure using one of a mechanical polishing process, a laser polishing process, a laser shock peening process, a shot peening process, and a water jet process.

A three-dimensional device is fabricated in a layer-by-layer approach using a support material. The support material is deposited in a liquid form on a surface, hardened by cooling or ultraviolet (UV) curing, and selectively ablated to create an area within which the desired structure of the device will be formed. Active material is deposited into this area, and the layer-by-layer process repeated until the three-dimensional device has been completed. Thereafter, any remaining support material is removed by water or other solvent.

A three-dimensional dental device is fabricated in a layer-by-layer approach using a support material. The support material is deposited in a liquid form on a surface, hardened by cooling or ultraviolet (UV) curing, and selectively ablated to create an area within which the desired structure of the dental device will be formed. Active dental material is deposited into this area, and the layer-by-layer process repeated until the three-dimensional dental device has been completed. Thereafter, any remaining support material is removed by water or other solvent.

A method for making a rapid prototype of a patient's mouth to be used in the design and fabrication of a dental prosthesis. The method takes an impression of a mouth including a first installation site having a dental implant installed in the first installation site and a gingival healing abutment having at least one informational marker attached to the dental implant. A stone model is prepared based on the impression, including teeth models and model markers indicative of the at least one informational marker. The model is scanned. Scan data is generated from the scanning. The scan data is transferred to a CAD program. A three-dimensional model of the installation site is created in the CAD program. The at least one informational marker is determined to gather information for manufacturing the rapid prototype. Rapid prototype dimensional information is developed. The rapid prototype dimensional information is transferred to a rapid prototyping machine which fabricate a rapid prototype of the patient's dentition as well as a dental implant analog position.

The present invention enables modification of an intraosseous implant device that is not only biologically non-inert, but can stimulate bone and vascular growth; decrease localized inflammation; and fight local infections. The method of the present invention provides a fiber with any of the following modifications: (1) Nanofiber with PDGF, (2) Nanofiber with PDGF+BMP2, and (3) Nanofiber with BMP2 and Ag. Nanofiber can be modified with other growth factors that have been shown to improve bone growth and maturation—BMP and PDGF being the most common. Nanofiber can be applied on the surface of the implant in several ways. First, a spiral micro-notching can be applied on the implant in the same direction as the threads with the nanofibers embedded into the notches. Second, the entire surface of the implant may be coated with a mesh of nanofibers. Third, it can be a combination of both embedding and notching.

The present invention enables modification of an intraosseous implant device that is not only biologically non-inert, but can stimulate bone and vascular growth; decrease localized inflammation; and fight local infections. The method of the present invention provides a fiber with any of the following modifications: (1) Nanofiber with PDGF, (2) Nanofiber with PDGF+BMP2, and (3) Nanofiber with BMP2 and Ag. Nanofiber can be modified with other growth factors that have been shown to improve bone growth and maturation—BMP and PDGF being the most common. Nanofiber can be applied on the surface of the implant in several ways. First, a spiral micro-notching can be applied on the implant in the same direction as the threads with the nanofibers embedded into the notches. Second, the entire surface of the implant may be coated with a mesh of nanofibers. Third, it can be a combination of both embedding and notching.

A three-dimensional printing system includes a resin vessel, a support tray, a motorized carriage, a light engine, and a controller. The resin vessel has a lower side with a transparent sheet which provides a lower bound for photocurable resin contained within the vessel. The support tray has a lower face for supporting an object being fabricated. The motorized carriage is for supporting and vertically positioning the support tray. The light engine is for projecting radiation up through the transparent sheet to a build plane. The controller operates the motorized carriage and the light engine to fabricate the object. The object includes a vertical arrangement of dental arches suspended from the lower face and a plurality couplings that connect pairs of the dental arches.

The invention relates to a method for producing an artificial gingiva, in which a 3D model of the artificial gingiva is already provided. A gingiva template representing at least partial areas of the 3D model of the artificial gingiva is constructed as a negative mold using the 3D model of the artificial gingiva.

An implant device configured to be at least partially in contact with bone on implantation has an improved osteoinductive feature to enhance new bone formation. The implant device has one or more bone growth surfaces extending from a structurally solid feature of the implant device. The one or more bone growth surfaces are configured to mimic adult trabecular bone by having trenches, grooves or surface recesses or prominences exhibiting numerous structural elements or walls not perpendicular to the surface that are non-coplanar or arched extending 20 to 500 microns in depth having an increasing inclination from the surface extending inwardly and not parallel to opposing or adjacent walls forming a random or non-random network. The one or more bone growth surfaces configured to mimic trabecular bone have discernable nano features on the structural elements or walls exhibiting nano scale features of less than 200 nano meters within the network.

The invention relates to methods for preparing a three-dimensional digital model of a prosthetic denture base for fabrication using a light-based three-dimensional printing apparatus. A virtual reference model of a prosthetic denture base is prepared and manipulated to establish specific spatial orientation and angular inclination with respect to the build platform surface of the printing apparatus. Methods may include performing a corrective digital scaling process on the virtual reference model in order to achieve further improvements to dimensional accuracy in the fabrication of prosthetic denture bases.