Aerospace technology creates "virtual mouth".

• Position: Dentistry - DentAART Inc.

The marriage of dentistry and aerospace engineering may soon yield new "virtual mouth" technology to help orthodontists and dentists accurately calibrate movement of teeth and precisely design and speed manufacturing of restorations and replacement teeth. Experts in aerospace engineering at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), Atlanta, collaborated with dentist Randy Muecke of Atlanta and orthodontist David Leever of Tampa, Fla., to enhance the practitioners' patented DentAART Inc. technology.

Dentists have long sought a way to capture an exact anatomic image of a patient's tooth position and form. DentAART precisely captures that anatomic relationship and creates a unique prescription for use in planning and delivery of facial procedures--restorative, orthodontic, and surgical.

Muecke and Leever brought DentAART to GTRI researchers to confirm Leever's mathematical proof of the technology. Then they contracted with GTRI to develop a digital version of DentAART, including individualized patient functional movement. Jeffrey J. Sitterle, GTRI's chief scientist, an expert in sensing systems and computer simulation, led the research and development efforts.

He and other GTRI experts took the idea further and offered a way to computerize...