One of the effects we’re always striving for with dentures is that they should look and feel like your natural teeth. Perhaps one of the best ways to do that would be to precisely reconstruct your natural smile in dentures.
Unfortunately, that isn’t normally an option, especially if your smile has long been subject to wear, damage, or decay for many years before we’re designing your dentures.
But new software from Disney designed to help create accurate CGI teeth may someday make it easy for us to give you back the smile of your youth.
Capturing Actors’ Teeth for CGI
In the past, CGI was primarily used to create effects around actors, such as creatures and landscapes that were simply difficult or impossible to build with practical effects. These days, there is more of a trend to use CGI to replace the actors themselves.
Part of this is motion capture acting. In this case, the actor is replaced with a completely different character, where an exact mimic of details like teeth doesn’t matter much.
But increasingly CGI is used to do some of the stunts that actors and stunt people can’t or won’t perform. The challenge for these kinds of effects is seamlessly blending them with footage of the actual actors. This means creating a completely realistic CGI portrayal of an actor that can blend the CGI shots with the footage of the actor for smooth transitions that don’t break the illusion.
In the past, this has been a time-consuming challenge because it required a detailed scan of the teeth, using equipment very similar to the digital scanners used in dentists’ offices. These work well, but the time required for the scan can be expensive.
Now Disney researchers have developed a new system for creating an entire smile using just a few pictures or a short video of a person smiling.
Using a Huge Database of Teeth
The new technique captures all the parts of the smile that are visible. It can be used to construct 3D models of these visible teeth using just a few pictures or a short video that moves around the front part of the mouth. This includes the visible portions of the tooth as well as an inferred structure of the roots.
Once the models of the visible teeth are constructed, the program then runs through its database of saved teeth sizes and shapes, selecting matches that fit with the visible teeth in terms of size and shape.
When it’s complete, the image is a 3-D model of an entire set of teeth, including the roots.
Would You Like Your Old Smile Back?
When it comes to dentures, some people like the thought of getting their old smile back. We can do this today, although it’s a bit more time consuming a process. If you bring in pictures of you when you were happiest with your smile, we can talk about how to restore that smile.
Other people like the idea of getting to start over with a completely new and more attractive smile. This is also an option–you can get a new, beautiful smile. Many people are happy that dentures give them the most beautiful smile of their lives.
No matter which type of smile you desire, you’ll love the natural appearance of your quality, highly attractive dentures. To learn more about how you can get quality dentures in Columbia, SC, please call (803) 781-9090 today for an appointment with a denture dentist at at Smile Columbia Dentistry.
