Richard Rosenblatt I just wanted to post some screen shots from a screw retained implant case that I just finished last week. I try not to have too much lateral function on implant restorations. I just always was taught that function down the long axis of the implant would be tolerated better long term and hopefully improve longevity. This case has 3 implant retained crowns. I did 13 and `14 a few years ago and 12 was a crown on a natural tooth. the tooth had very little support and I tried to convince her to get 3 implants or 2 and a bridge but she wanted to try and save it. 12 fractured to the gumline and she ended up getting that 3rd implant. When I image for implants I now image across to the contralateral canine because I have found using the articulator function has really helped to dial in my occlusion and eliminate these potential lateral interferences. Here is the scan and the intial proposal and some work I did on it from both straight on and from the occlusal shot.
as you can see from the image from the occlusal view, I took the occlusion to a navy blue and removed all the maximum intercuspation interferences that I could see. Normally this would be pretty perfect, but sometimes I'd have to adjust some excursives. I decided to look and see if I had any excursive interferences. to activate the articulator, first you must activate it in the configurations. here are some screen shots of how to find it. Configurations-->options--->articulation once in there activate the options for the articulation but not to use it on the intial proposal. I found this really takes a long time to process and I don't need it for every case
Once I you have activated the articulation in the configuration, you can select it for any case. In this case, after the proposal I went back to administrationan and clicked on the articulation icon and it then activates it
Once I do that I click on the articulator icon in the design page and it will show my any excursive prematurity with the occlusal compass. In this case I was hitting near the cusp tip on the incline of the occlusal table above the screw hole.
I can then just use my circular shape tool to remove this interference and have a restoration that I did not have to do any adjustment to other than polishing the composite over the access hole.
This does not have to be used only for implants but its when I tend to use it most. If you plan on using it, just make sure you image to at least the contralateral canine to give the software the necessary info to get us the most accurate results. Hope this will help you dial in your implants and bigger quad type cases.
