Milling dental crowns from a ceramic workpiece on a CNC machine is a complex and delicate process, with its challenges. Such a CAM system needs to satisfy quite a long list of requirements:
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It needs to automatically create a set of programs for the CNC machine controller according to the specified sawing strategy, for different sides and different areas of the crown, for different milling burrs – rough, basic, and thin.
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It needs to automatically recognize different parts of the crown – the inner and outer sides, the sharp edge of the crown, the anatomy region – and create separate programs for them, taking into account their dental profile, the geometry of the burr, its service life, and the machine's ability to manipulate it in different axes.
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It must arrange temporary sprues around the perimeter of the crown or bridge according to certain dental rules, avoiding places critical for the dentist.
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It is imperative that the system allows the simulation of milling (virtual milling).
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It is desirable that the CAM system be hosted in the cloud as a service in order to be accessible both to the machines at the factory and at the dentist’s chair.
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The system must be readily modifiable and flexibly customizable to adapt to the specifics of restorations, various materials, machine features, and to respond to emerging problems in real-life manufacturing.
It is nearly impossible to find a ready-made package that satisfies these requirements, so we developed our own CAM system, which now allows us to automatically mill out thousands of dental restorations per day with high accuracy and speed.
