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Re:Straighter Teeth by Mail by grantlmiller on Wednesday February 04, 2015 @08:39PM (#9001264)
A few months ago, I was thinking about the opportunity to use 3d printing/imaging to drastically lower the cost of these types of devices. Ultimately the biggest hurdle is going to be getting an extremely accurate scan (not sure if you could do some combination of using dental x-rays, along with 3d imaging tech from mobile cameras to build the mouth model for each customer).

Part of the solution could be in home try-on (similar to Warby Parker). Ie send 10-20 sets of 3d printed retainers, all slightly different but potential fits. The customer selects which one fits best & the full set is based on that starting model. Since you're not actually creating molds to base the retainers on, the cost of each slightly different model should be pennies.

Anyway, that's about as far as I got... then I went back to building enterprise software.

Re:Straighter Teeth by Mail by hatty on Wednesday February 04, 2015 @09:56PM (#9001496)
I made an entire workflow with open source tools and materials that cost less than $100.

Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfjuUN0E5yc

Like you said, the limiting factor is the extremely accurate scan. My workflow is not rigorous, just a proof-of-concept until the printing and scanning tech comes around.

Re:Straighter Teeth by Mail by sethkontny on Friday February 13, 2015 @02:45AM (#9043321)
sleepmedx