FAQ

An intraoral scan is a faster, more comfortable, and more accurate way to get a three-dimensional “snapshot” of your teeth, which is the starting information needed to make a custom-fitted device for your mouth.

Unlike a physical impression – which involves pressing a putty-like material against your teeth and hoping that you don’t gag while you wait for the material to set – an intraoral scan involves a dentist simply moving a wand-like camera device around your mouth.

That device takes a series of super-accurate images (up to thousands per second), which can be stitched together in software to create a precise, three-dimensional image of your mouth.

With physical impressions, even when taken by a skilled dental professional, the material used to take the impression can sometimes form bubbles, shrink, expand or distort – often not immediately, but before the impression is finally used to make a device – leading to inaccuracies, which result in devices that are less comfortable, don’t work as well, or don’t fit at all.

Because intraoral scans are fully digital, there are no problems with physical distortion. And when problems with a scan do occur (usually just from moving the wand a too quickly or missing a few areas with the wand), they’re usually obvious just from looking at the results, letting your dentist quickly take another scan if needed.