Shape, shade and function in dental prosthetics

Johann Wolfgang van Goethe portraita founder of morphology which helped develop this tool for dental prosthetics
Figure 1: Johann Wolfgang van Goethe not only wanted to know ‘what holds the world together at heart’, but was also a founder of morphology. Source: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – Goethe as draughtsman, Wolfgang Hecht (ed) C H Beck Munich 1982

Developing and improving dental prosthetics

The universal scholar Johann Wolfgang von Goethe once described the inner complexity of natural morphologies as follows: ‘No living thing is one, it’s always many.’ In the development of the new Vitapan Excell anterior tooth line, the aim was to biomimetically reproduce this organically grown form. The multi-layer structure, intended to correspond to the anatomy of natural teeth along with the laws of biology were consistently considered in its shaping and proportions. In the following, Eva Kerschensteiner, dental technician and a teeth/prosthetics product and process developer at Vita Zahnfabrik (Bad Säckingen, Germany), reports on the detailed and targeted development of the highly aesthetic Vitapan Excell in accordance with the patent of nature.

A real extracted tooth modelled for Vitapan to create dental prosthetics
Figures 2a and 2b: Digitised morphology modelled after nature. Real extracted teeth are modelled for Vitapan Excell
Another real extracted tooth modelled for Vitapan
Figure 2b

Pursuing nature

Meeting the demands of everyday laboratory use is what drove the development of Vitapan Excell. It was also important to us that the dental prosthetics teeth fulfil the wishes and needs of users. The development team therefore exchanged ideas with dental technicians all over the world. Consequently the biological original is painstakingly…

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