Sensable's new Intellifit TE Digital Restoration System offers wide range of benefits to dental labs

Feb 25 2011

Sensable Dental, a division of Sensable, announced the newest version of its Intellifit™ TE (Touch-Enabled) Digital Restoration System that offers dental labs even more choice, performance and flexibility in digitally designing and fabricating a wide range of dental restorations. The first and #1 selling system for partials and more, Intellifit - formerly named the Sensable Dental Lab System - now adds support for touch-enabled articulation, veneers, enhanced design features and fabrication choices for crown and bridge, as well as increased 3D printing capacity.

Driven by the need to stay competitive and leverage a declining labor force of skilled technicians, dental labs are transitioning from painstaking hand waxing to streamlined digital design and production at a rapid pace. Sensable's Intellifit is helping transform an industry from an era of manual hand-crafting to greater productivity, profitability, and precision. The system's support for both fixed and removable restorations, produced faster and with heightened precision though its unique touch-enabled technology, allows dental labs of all sizes to gain a competitive advantage. Sensable is showcasing the newest version of Intellifit software starting today at three dental lab industry events in Chicago coinciding with the 145^th Chicago Dental Society Midwinter Meeting.

"We are using the Intellifit system to create both fixed and removable restorations, including all-ceramic monolithic crowns, bridges, and prepped veneers," said Kristine Van Cleve, president of Dental Prosthetic Services in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. "We especially appreciate how the system makes pressing cost-effective by streamlining the process. We can quickly create customized digital tooth designs with full anatomy that perfectly match adjacent teeth, print, invest, and then press."

"We've designed over 17,000 fixed and removable restorations over the past two and a half years using Intellifit, and the system's efficiency and value for us keeps on growing," said John Aitchison, owner of Minot Dental Lab in Minot ND. "Partials, crowns, bridges, overstructures, substructures and veneers - we can do them all with Intellifit. The system gives us precise and consistent results and accuracy that far exceeds hand waxing."

Highlights of What's New in Intellifit:

Touch-Enabled Virtual Articulation - 'Feel' the Fit

• Intellifit's unique 3D 'Virtual Touch' interface and integrated touch-enabled articulator allow lab technicians to actually feel how the teeth - including the new restoration they are producing - will fit together in the patient's mouth. Articulators are essential to testing the occlusion of almost every type of dental restoration and lab technicians have long used them, as well as their sense of touch, to assess whether a restoration will allow the patient to function with the correct amount of contact and excursive movements. Intellifit's virtual articulator mimics the feel and function of a physical articulator, yet allows dynamic settings to meet patient specifications and freedom of movement in 3 dimensions. This industry first really emulates technicians' physical movements and sense of touch, enabling them to actually feel the fit.

Prepped Veneers

• Intellifit's digital design tools, along with integrated digital tooth libraries from VITA® and Heraeus, streamline the process of creating highly-esthetic and perfectly-fitting veneers.
• Intellifit eliminates tedious, time-consuming hand-waxing, ensures symmetry and provides consistency, regardless of which technician is doing the work.

Enhanced Crown & Bridge Functionality

• The addition of the Heraeus Premium® digital tooth library - renowned for its distinctively natural appearance and perfect fit - allows dental labs even more choice in creating aesthetically pleasing restorations for their doctors. With full anatomy "virtual" teeth, lab technicians can jump-start their designs for veneers, crowns, bridges, overstructures and substructures using Intellifit.
• Intellifit's streamlined margin detection delivers precise margin lines for even the most
  challenging cases
• Multi-die scanning provides accurate 3D scans in less than 20 seconds per unit
• Touch-enabled, virtual articulator allows technicians to test occlusion of restoration - before it is produced.

More Fabrication Choices

• Pressing: Dental labs using Intellifit can design and fabricate full anatomy crowns, bridges and veneers and then press in popular all-ceramic materials from VITA and Ivoclar Vivadent such as Ivoclar Vivadent's IPS e.max® and IPS Empress® Esthetic. Technicians of varying skill levels can deliver consistent, precise-fitting restorations in a fraction of the time of hand waxing, since Intellifit streamlines the number of steps required to produce high-quality pressed restorations.

• Milling: Intellifit provides automatic tool compensation and output for industry standard milling machines. Labs can mill full contour overstructures and substructures in a variety of materials including zirconia and all-ceramic materials through Sensable's network of authorized milling centers.

Increased Printer Throughput

• New up to 60% larger printing area, now available on the integrated, high-resolution 3D Systems Projet™ DP 3000 resin printer, delivers more throughput for increased productivity. Labs can print up to 200 parts in a single build. High-resolution resin parts can be used for casting, flasking and pressing and are ideal for fixed and removable restorations.

"We're proud to offer the industry's first touch-enabled virtual articulator integrated into the Intellifit system," said Bob Steingart, president of Sensable Dental. Allowing lab technicians to assess the fit of restorations by "feel," in a way that they are used to - and giving them the tools to easily make adjustments - means more productivity for labs. Besides innovations like this, we're committed to giving labs more choice, more flexibility and more restoration types from the same system. As the economy forces dental labs to more closely examine their productivity, Sensable offers labs practical solutions to better serve their doctors while achieving a strong return on investment."