Delcam believes that its latest programs offer higher levels of consistency and accuracy than other dental CADCAM systems. As a result, they can minimise, or even eliminate, manual adjustment of the restoration as it is being fitted, and produce restorations that give improved comfort and that are more durable.

As well as improving accuracy, Delcam has increased the range of restorations that can be designed in DentCAD. The new version offers automated tools for the design of inlays and onlays, and for the creation of dental bars, customised abutments, collars and pressed crowns, in addition to the previous options for copings, crowns and bridge frameworks.

In the new release, extra analysis tools have been added to DentCAD to ensure that the designs can be manufactured efficiently and will perform satisfactorily. For example, undercut shading can be used to identify areas where five-axis machining might be needed so adding to manufacturing costs, while thickness shading will highlight any areas in the design that might be too thin to give a durable restoration or that might chip or crack during manufacture.

Improvements to DentMILL reflect the recent enhancements to Delcam’s PowerMILL engineering CAM system on which it is based. These include support for the latest hardware developments, such as 64-bit operation, multi-threading and background processing, that can significantly reduce calculation times.

A number of improvements have been made to give smoother toolpaths, in particular for five-axis machining. These new techniques not only give a more accurate surface finish on the restoration but also protect the cutters and the machine tool by minimising the stresses during machining. In addition, the range of five-axis machining options has been increased with the option to undertake constant-Z undercut machining.