Comparison of 3-D Printing and 5-axis Milling for the Production of Dental e-models from Intra-oral Scanning

ABSTRACTRecently, chairside production in dentistry has garnered attention because of the time-saving, low-cost and high level of predictability of outcomes. Compared to traditional manufacturing using computer numerical control (CNC) milling machines, 3D printing plays a new and perhaps more important role in dental chairside production. The aim of this paper is to compare the dental e-models manufactured by 3D printer with those fabricated by CNC milling machines. In this paper, a patient with mal-positioned mandible was initially selected. Through an intra-oral scanner, the 3D STL model of the patient's denture was created. After that, a computer-aided virtual orthodontic treatment was planned. After planning, 8 steps were respectively fabricated by CNC milling machine and 3D printer. These models were digitized via a scanner and then compared with the original data from the virtual planning of orthodontic treatment. In the experiment, it is found that the smoothness and repeatability for CNC machining...