In my dental practice, we often use mounted models for diagnostics and restorative treatment planning. Three years ago, we began 3D printing these models.

One of the benefits of printed models is their higher durability compared to stone models. Also, long term, we do not need to save the printed models because we have the digital models saved in the patient’s file. But the greatest benefit has been the efficiency gained in mounting models on articulators. As a result, we have decreased our overhead and increased our mix of services.

What made this mounting efficiency possible is software called “Blue Sky Plan” from Blue Sky Bio. Blue Sky Plan is advanced dental treatment planning software used for milling and printing dental products. One of its applications is printing surgical implant guides, but it has many dental and medical applications for anatomical modeling, surface editing, and offsetting. It allows for CT scan importation and analysis, and export to STL format for 3D printing.

When dental models are printed, the interior can be hollow with a waffle pattern on the back that makes articulator mounting super easy. The process is as simple as opening the software, going to editing, importing your scan, and then selecting a hollow model with the waffle base. To print the waffle base on the model, you need to scan the entire pallet.