A method for acquiring at least one two-dimensional image of a part of arches of a patient includes steps carried out by the patient or other person who is not a dental health professional, for example, including placing a dental separator in the mouth of the patient in order to separate the lips of the patient and improve the visibility of the teeth during the acquisition of said at least one two-dimensional image, and acquiring, in a mouth closed position and with a personal image acquisition apparatus, said at least one two-dimensional image.

Disclosed in a method, a user interface and a system for use in determining shade of a patient's tooth, wherein a digital 3D representation including shape data and texture data for the tooth is obtained. A tooth shade value for at least one point on the tooth is determined based on the texture data of the corresponding point of the digital 3D representation and on known texture values of one or more reference tooth shade values.

Disclosed in a method, a user interface and a system for use in determining shade of a patient's tooth, wherein a digital 3D representation including shape data and texture data for the tooth is obtained. A tooth shade value for at least one point on the tooth is determined based on the texture data of the corresponding point of the digital 3D representation and on known texture values of one or more reference tooth shade values.

A device for determining the surface topology and associated color of a structure, such as a teeth segment, includes a scanner for providing depth data for points along a two-dimensional array substantially orthogonal to the depth direction, and an image acquisition means for providing color data for each of the points of the array, while the spatial disposition of the device with respect to the structure is maintained substantially unchanged. A processor combines the color data and depth data for each point in the array, thereby providing a three-dimensional color virtual model of the surface of the structure. A corresponding method for determining the surface topology and associate color of a structure is also provided.

A system and methods are used to provide patients access to in-home healthcare, for example, using a device in conjunction with a mobile device. The system and methods described herein are used for tooth whitening applications, general dental or medical checkups, detecting disease, updating dental or medical records, and automatic ordering of prescription and non-prescription products.

A method for color shade matching obtains a 3D tooth surface representation using an intraoral scanner wherein the 3D tooth surface representation comprises surface data and a spatially resolved angular distribution of color vectors, wherein the spatially resolved angular distribution of color vectors associates one or more point positions from the surface data to the corresponding angular distribution of color vectors. The method identifies one or more shade values, where each shade value is associated with one angular distribution of color vectors from the spatially resolved angular distribution of color vectors, by comparing the angular distribution of color vectors to a set of reference angular distributions of color vectors, wherein each reference angular distribution in the set is associated with a corresponding shade value. The method displays, stores, or transmits the surface data with an indication of the one or more shade values.

Apparatus for detecting a 3D structure of an object, comprising at least three laser emitters and a beam splitter that splits the laser radiation of the laser emitters into a reference radiation and an illumination radiation. The illumination radiation strikes the object to be measured, is reflected by the object as object radiation and interferes with the reference radiation. A detector receives the interference patterns formed from the interference of the reference and object radiation and an analysis unit analyzes the interference patterns. At least two of the laser emitters emit laser radiation in the invisible range and the analysis unit detects the object in three dimensions based on the interference patterns of the invisible laser radiation. At least one of the laser emitters emits colored laser radiation and the analysis unit deduces the object's color based on the intensity of the colored object radiation reflected by the object.

A method for optimizing initial discriminating information extracted from a two-dimensional image of the patient dental arches, referred to as “acquired image”, by a three-dimensional digital reference model of at least one portion of a patient arch, the method including the steps: C1. assessing quality of the initial discriminating information and quality threshold, filtering to keep only the initial discriminating information that has quality higher than the quality threshold, and defining “the discriminating information to be tested” as the initial discriminating information selected; C2. testing consistency between the discriminating information to be tested and reference model; C3. assessing test result and, in accordance with the assessment: adding discriminating information that was not kept to the discriminating information to be tested and/or deleting discriminating information from the discriminating information to be tested, and then returning to step C2. or; defining the optimal discriminating information as the discriminating information to be tested.

A camera system includes: a database which stores a plurality of stereoscopic color profiles, in which conversion relationships calculated from second image data obtained by photographing a plurality of reference color stereoscopic objects assigned with reference colorimetric values in advance and the reference colorimetric values corresponding to the second image data are associated with a plurality of illumination conditions in photographing; a selection unit which, based on an illumination condition at the time of photographing of a stereoscopic subject, selects a stereoscopic color profile corresponding to the illumination condition; and a color conversion unit which performs color conversion from first image data of a photographed image of the stereoscopic subject to colorimetric values, based on the selected stereoscopic color profile.

A method of making a dental restoration has the steps of capturing an image of a tooth, posterizing the image, determining a tooth color structure, providing information about a multicolored block having a block color structure, matching the tooth color structure and the block color structure, based on the matching, determining a position within the block in which the tooth color structure and the block color structure match, and machining the dental restoration from the block at the determined position. The invention helps facilitating the making of dental restorations at maximized aesthetics.