We are a fully digital laboratory, with advanced dental technology including 3D scanners, printers and intraoral cameras all working together seamlessly to create high quality, accurate restorations.
Surgery Visit. Impressions and Photos
The digital journey starts much the same as before:
- Upper and lower Impressions. They must be accurate and fully anatomical. They can be in Silicon with a full light body wash, a five day alginate such as hydrogum 5, or they can be full intra oral digital scan impressions.
- We will need two photos, they must be high resolution sent as full size files. Most modern cameras including your phones are capable of capturing these images.
- The images should be 1. full smile and 2. retracted.
- The patients eyes should be looking straight into the lens of the camera, the head should be upright and not angled in any way.
- The smile photo should show the upper and lower teeth as clearly as possible. The patient should force this smile if required.


Laboratory. Smile design
Once received in the Laboratory the models are poured, scanned and imported into Exocad, Digital scans are imported directly. We open smile creator and import the smile/retracted photos. This whole process can be watched in a 15 minute tutorial on YouTube.
Why we use Exocad:
With normal smile design software, a smile photo is manipulated by superimposing teeth images on to the original photo, this can look amazing but is often completely unrealistic as it does not take into account actual tooth position.
Exocad however, merges both 2D photo data with the 3D scan data of the actual mouth, the smile design is both aesthetic and fully achievable. Show your patients a beautiful photo of their proposed Smile Makeover with the knowledge that this will be the final outcome.
Start Design
Once 2D and 3D data is aligned, designing can start.
Exocad uses Golden proportion guides and hundreds of tooth libraries to help us design the perfect smile. Manual adjustment by the technician allows for the uniqueness of every smile.
When the design is complete we can send the before and after photos for you to discuss with your patient, changes can be easily made and new photos sent.
Once the patient confirms that they are happy with the design. We can print a model of the design, this can be returned for final approval or we can proceed with the next stages:
We duplicate the models and will provide all the normal components that you are used to:
- We duplicate the models and will provide all the normal components that you are used to: For Indirect restorations like e.max veneers, etc. we will make; Preparation guides, stents and splints for temporaries or trial smiles.
- For direct composite restorations, we can construct a Memosil Matrix or Palatal silicon stent.
If Indirect restorations are to be made, preparation impressions will be returned to the Laboratory. This new information is merged with the original smile design in exocad and turned into the final restoration which will perfectly mirror the preliminary design.
The previously designed restorations are merged with the new scan and prepared for manufacture in whichever restoration or material has been prescribed. With a complete record of the design process, and patient consent at each stage.



