Analogue. Digital. Zirkonzahn.

Zirkonzahn's workflow has been conceived to let dental technicians combine analogue and digital working steps.

Each analogue working step can be transferred and reproduced 1:1 in the software and the digital design can, in turn, be converted back to digital at any time, allowing the user to benefit from the advantages of both working methods and to plan his job in a complete individual manner.

As a first step, it is necessary to gather all of the patient's specific information through the intraoral scanner (Figures 1 and 8); the PlaneFinder® and the facial scanner Face Hunter (Figures 2 and 9), which respectively allow the user to detect the patient's natural head position and occlusal plane and to obtain a 3D digitalisation of the patient's faces; and the new PlaneAnalyser (Figures 3 and 10), which is used instead to register the movements of the mandible.

The digitally recorded analogue data are then combined into the virtual articulator for the subsequent design of the restoration (Figures 4 and 11). In order to also have a physical model of the patient's situation, the new CAD/CAM Model Maker software module is available to the dental technician. Once the model of the initial situation made through the Model Maker software module has been milled (Figures 5 and 12), the workflow allows the user to check the virtual data for correctness in the physical world using the resin block JawPositioner. Indeed, in the JawPositioner, it is possible to quickly mill a positioning pattern for the mandibular model, which is then fixed into the PS1 physical articulator using the PlanePositioner® (Figures 6 and 13), a positioning platform that can be tilted according to the reference planes previously registered with the PlaneFinder.

In the physical articulator, it is now possible to perform checks on the inclination of the jaw for the subsequent design and milling of the restoration (Figures 7 and 14). Once the prototype, or the final prosthesis, is milled, the PlanePositioner platform can be used as a reference plane for further checks. Any possible change implemented during the check phase can be immediately digitalised and transferred back to the virtual situation through one of the Zirkonzahn's scanners.