Identifying forces on a tooth

Abstract

The present disclosure includes computing device related, systems, and methods for identifying force placed on a tooth are described herein. One method includes receiving initial orthodontic data (IOD) including teeth data; creating a virtual set of teeth from the IOD; receiving dental appliance information including at least one of dental appliance material properties and characteristics; virtually placing a dental appliance, formed from the dental appliance information, onto the virtual set of teeth; and determining one or more forces applied to the teeth based on information from the IOD and dental appliance information.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A non-transitory computing device readable medium having instructions that can be executed by a processor to:
 generate a treatment plan including a segmented path for virtual teeth from an initial virtual dental model to a target virtual dental model, each segment having a corresponding virtual dental appliance to move the virtual teeth to a subsequent segment, wherein the initial virtual dental model that is based on initial orthodontic data (IOD) of physical teeth;   virtually identify and test force applied to the virtual teeth by the corresponding virtual dental appliance of a particular segment of the treatment plan and a virtual tooth surface feature placed on one of the virtual teeth;   determine a resulting configuration of the virtual teeth based on the virtual identifying and testing;   provide an editing tool operable by a user to adjust a shape or placement of the virtual tooth surface feature to improve the resulting configuration;   virtually reidentify and retest force applied to the virtual teeth by the corresponding virtual dental appliance and the virtual tooth surface feature after the adjustment;   determine a resulting configuration of the virtual teeth based on the virtual reidentifying and retesting; and   output, via an output interface, an identification of a placement of an actual feature, corresponding to the placement of the virtual tooth surface feature, on an actual tooth, corresponding to the one of the virtual teeth.   
     
     
         2 . The medium of  claim 1 , the instructions further executable to receive an edit to adjust a shape of the corresponding virtual dental appliance. 
     
     
         3 . The medium of  claim 2 , the instructions further executable to:
 virtually identify and test force applied to the virtual teeth by the adjusted dental appliance and virtual tooth surface feature after the adjustment; and   determine a new resulting configuration of the virtual teeth based on the virtual identifying and testing for the adjusted dental appliance and adjusted feature.   
     
     
         4 . The medium of  claim 3 , the instructions further executable to illustrate the force applied to the teeth by the corresponding virtual dental appliance on the initial virtual dental model and simultaneously illustrate the force applied to the teeth by the dental appliance and virtual tooth surface feature after the adjustment on the initial virtual dental model. 
     
     
         5 . The medium of  claim 2  wherein the instructions to receive the edit to the virtual tooth surface feature comprise instructions to receive an edit to one or more of a group of virtual tooth surface features including a dimple, a reinforcement structure, a shape, and an orientation with respect to the teeth. 
     
     
         6 . A system for virtually identifying and testing force applied to teeth, comprising:
 a processor;   memory having instructions executable by the processor to:
 determine a target virtual dental model for an initial virtual dental model that is based on initial orthodontic data (IOD) of physical teeth; 
 generate a treatment plan including a segmented path for virtual teeth from the initial virtual dental model to the target virtual dental model, each segment having a corresponding virtual dental appliance to move the virtual teeth to a subsequent segment; 
 virtually identify and test force applied to the virtual teeth by each corresponding virtual dental appliance of the treatment plan and a virtual tooth surface feature placed on one of the virtual teeth; 
 determine a resulting configuration of the virtual teeth after each segment based on the virtual identifying and testing versus the treatment plan; 
 receive an adjustment to a shape or placement of the virtual tooth surface feature to improve the resulting configuration; 
 virtually reidentify and retest force applied to the virtual teeth by each corresponding virtual dental appliance and the virtual tooth surface feature after the adjustment; 
 determine a resulting configuration of the virtual teeth based on the virtual reidentifying and retesting; and 
 output, via an output interface, an identification of a placement of an actual feature, corresponding to the placement of the virtual tooth surface feature, on an actual tooth, corresponding to the one of the virtual teeth. 
   
     
     
         7 . The system of  claim 6 , the instructions further executable to virtually identify and test force applied to the teeth by each corresponding virtual dental appliance and by virtual gingiva and bone interactions. 
     
     
         8 . The system of  claim 7 , the instructions further executable to virtually identify and test force applied to the teeth by a particular virtual dental appliance for bone breakdown. 
     
     
         9 . The system of  claim 8 , wherein the force applied to the teeth by the particular virtual dental appliance comprises a force sufficient to enable the virtual teeth to begin moving at a start of the treatment plan. 
     
     
         10 . The system of  claim 7 , the instructions further executable to virtually identify and test force applied to the virtual teeth by a particular virtual dental appliance for movement after bone restructuring has occurred.