NEW Shining 3D Elite: The super intraoral scanner with photogrammetry

In the world of modern dentistry, intraoral scanners have become indispensable tools, streamlining the process of capturing digital impressions with unprecedented precision and patient comfort. These devices are redefining workflows, enhancing diagnostic accuracy and improving overall patient experiences by eliminating the need for traditional, messy impressions.

There have been many milestones and just as many failures in the history of intraoral scanning over the years. One of the first intraoral scanners was the photo-based CEREC, first commercialised in 1987 as part of the CERamic REConstruction system from Siemens. The original CEREC as well as CEREC 2 were all-in-one units combining scanning and milling. CEREC has evolved through several generations and today, their brand new Primescan 2 remains a high-end, premium scanning solution.

Itero was originally from Israel from the company CADENT. Dentists would scan with an iTero and then the company would mill dental models based on the scans and deliver them to your laboratory for use in traditional analogue laboratory manufacturing. iTero has also gone through many design incarnations, both before and since its acquisition by Align Technology. Apart from being the manufacturer of Invisalign, Align more recently acquired CAD software developer exocad.

E4D, a South African developed American backed scanning and milling solution aimed squarely at taking on CEREC, arrived in 2008. Whilst the name is rarely heard nowadays, Planmeca invested heavily in E4D and the technology has now evolved to the Planmeca Emerald, Ivoclar PrograScan One, AmannGirrbach Ceramill Map DRS and others.

TRIOS from 3Shape has been incredibly successful and was launched in 2011. Apart from being a powerful and versatile scanning platform, 3Shape produces a great suite of software that sets the standard for dental CAD. Medit scanners from Korea have also been very successful in recent times, putting a value-packed scanner and software solutions into dentists’ hands. And there are of course others. Carestream Dental sold its scanner business which are now sold under the DEXIS brand.

Enter: Shining 3D

Shining 3D is a name that people are starting to prick up their ears about and with good reason. The company was founded in 2004 and in the early years, it primarily concentrated on providing 3D scanning technology for industry which included handheld and desktop scanners. These scanners were used for a wide range of applications, such as quality control, reverse engineering and prototyping in a variety of industries including automative and aerospace.

In 2010, Shining 3D branched out to develop 3D printing systems as well and upgraded their scanning technologies with the debut of their Einscan series of scanners in 2015. They have since become market leaders in affordable handheld scanning with user-friendly software solutions.

In 2016, Shining 3D began exploring applications of its 3D scanning and printing technology in the healthcare sector. The company developed specialised solutions for dental and medical applications, including intraoral scanners and 3D printing solutions for prosthetics, orthodontics and surgery.

This has become one of the fastest-growing segments of Shining 3D’s business, releasing the Aoralscan 2 IntraOral Scanner in 2020 and the Aoralscan 3 in 2021. The Aoralscan wireless scanner followed in 2022. All of these scanners are well-designed, well thought-out and follow a lot of what all the other manufacturers are doing and perform on par or better than their more expensive counterparts (based on independently published data).

Aoralscan Elite: Changing the game!

Improvements in the accuracy, quality, features and benefits in new intraoral scanners have become stepwise at best. An evolution rather than a revolution.

Now, Shining 3D has launched arguably the greatest leap forward in intraoral scanning systems. The launch of the Aoralscan Elite brings with it, myriad “firsts” inlcuding photogrammetry and other design elements that clearly differentiate it from everything else on the market, yet at a price any clinician can afford.

The Aoralscan Elite has a one piece seamless aluminium alloy body with a special medical grade coating resulting in the smallest, lightest intraoral scanner of its kind ever, lighter by a hundred grams over its closest competitor. It weighs in at just 124 grams and the 245 x 30 x 26 mm sizing makes it small and ergonomic. The Elite is easy to manipulate and its size and weight eliminate fatigue. The Elite scanner features simple one-button operation and has a built in LED light on the button that changes colour to indicate the status of the scanner. It also uses an advanced motion sensing technology so the scanner can be used seamlessly to activate menus on-screen to proceed to the next step, view the scan and move it for inspection without touching a monitor, keyboard or mouse if desired.

It’s also amazingly fast. This next generation scanner has some high-tech hardware under the bonnet not seen before and very advanced software that lends itself to some of the fastest scanning imaginable. But there is more to this scanner than just raw speed. It comes with a selection of tip sizes - paediatric for small children or hard to access mouths; a regular tip suitable for most people situations; and then something new - a special edentulous tip for fully edentulous arch scanning plus some other functions that we will elaborate on later. The tips can be autoclaved up to 100 times each or as a semi-critical item, can be disinfected in the appropriate way which may lead to longer life. The replacement tips are inexpensive.

The software is not only a crucial part of the scanning process with a lot of AI functionality, but it can also be deactivted if you wish if your scanning preference calls for it. It’s very flexible as you can also customise your scanning sequence as well, so if you always want to scan the upper jaw first, you can do so and you are not locked into someone else’s ideal scanning sequence (i.e. create your own). There are also some really good features available for editing scans and adding extra scans as well that just work so well. The workflow is just so very easy.

Software features include high definition scanning (say if you want a higher resolution scan in a particular area such as a margin), Ortho Simulation (this feature is now very well advanced and allows a lot automation as well as manual input if desired to show your patient their new proposed smile!), Undercut analysis, margin line extraction and occlusion mappings as well as a temporary crown creator plus we now we have a feature called Metron Track . This feature will precisely compare two scans of the same patient and map the differences - great if you’re tracking tooth movement for example and you want to see the progress.

The Oral Health Report is another great feature where you take scans of the patient and the software will automatically generate a report of certain aspects of the patient’s oral health, including symptoms, preventive measures and treatment plans.

There is also a splint designing module and an indirect bonding for orthodontic brackets module.

And did I mention the scanner can be used as a high definition camera? Well it can.

Intraoral Photogrammetry Mode

All of the these features are surely enough in any new model intraoral scanner, however the real game changing, groundbreaking technology in the Aoralscan Elite is IPG mode. Sure you can use this scanner for your everyday crowns, bridges, veneers, implants, surgical guide splints, orthodontics, removable dentures, etc and it does all these with ease. What intraoral scanners have lacked up until now are two things, namely the ability to scan edentulous arches with a high degree of accuracy and the ability to scan implant positions across an arch in All On X cases with the same high degree of accuracy and repeatability that would allow, for example, a titanium bar to be milled without a model being required. This has been elusive with all intraoral scanners. It just has not been possible... until now.

The Shining 3D Aoralscan Elite is the first intraoral scanner to have a new, patented IntraOral Photogrammetry Mode.

In the past, the only way to accurately digitally record multiple implant positions across an arch has been with highly expensive extraoral photogrammetry systems such as the Pic Camera or the iMetric iCAM 4. These are great devices, but the price for providing this single function has been cost prohibitive for most clinicians, not to mention cumbersome to operate.

Now, with the Shining 3D Aoralscan Elite, this capability is accessible to everyone. Using the special high definition IPG mode and the included high definition coded scan markers, the Aoralscan Elite scanner can accurately scan the position of implants in All On X cases and more.

With advanced image processing algorithms and real-time dynamic tracking technology, the scanner uses the coded patterns on the scan bodies as accuracy control points. IPG technology ensures global consistency and accuracy by combining algorithm optimisation, fast recognition and accurate calculation of implant position. The large IPG scanning head specially designed for the Aoralscan Elite intraoral scanner effectively decreases the impact of soft tissue changes on the scanning results, further improving the accuracy of implant positioning.

So what does it all mean? You will get a cross arch accuracy of implant position of less than 5 microns and that’s about as accurate as it gets!

In addition, you do not need to scan any more scan markers as the software will automatically position the ones of your choice from the included library virtually and ready to be exported to CAD software such as exocad or 3Shape. This is a huge time saver as a whole step is now cut out of the process but the result is still the same. In the next article, the complete photogrammetry workflow will be explained in detail. Currently it is available for 30 leading brand implant systems with more to come.

As far as computers go , currently the software runs on a Windows PC and of course the faster your PC, the better it will run, i7 - 8700 series or better, 16 Gb RAM and the minimum graphics card is an NVIDIA RTX 2060 6Gig. Soon there will be a version for Mac as well and this will work on an M3 Chip or better.

The Shining 3D Aoralscan Elite intraoral scanner is an amazing piece of technology, a lightweight, accurate scanner like no other that boasts a ton of features as well as groundbreaking photogrammetry that it puts this hardware above all others. And it’s available now.

Terry Whitty is a director of Fabdent.