Key concepts and features

Materials and material groups

A material listed in dentalcam represents either a generic material, such as zirconia, or a material with its own brand name, such as IPS e.max. The shape of the blank – whether a disc or a block – is related to the material.

Materials are grouped into material groups. This allows you to set manufacturing settings for different materials at the same time.

Objects

Restorations and other dental components are referred to as objects indentalcam 9. You typically import objects as STL files, an open standard format for 3D data in the dental CAD/CAM field.

Indications

The various object types (crowns, bridges, etc.) are referred to as indications. Each object must be assigned the correct indication so that dentalcam can calculate the correct manufacturing strategy.

The easiest and fastest way is to select the indication automatically via metadata. To do this, dentalcam reads the metadata files from your CAD application and uses that information to provide an indication of the object.

Manufacturing strategy

To create a job from a fully designed virtual blank for dentalcnc, dentalcam calculates the manufacturing strategy for each object. Manufacturing strategies include the tools used and the tool paths. Manufacturing strategies are optimized for specific indications and materials.

Jobs

A calculated blank is forwarded as a job – similar to a print job – to dentalcnc.

Multi-machine capability

The user interfaces of dentalcam are multi-machine capable. You select the appropriate machine for each blank or job without having to launch another copy of the program.

directmill

The directmill function allows you to start jobs even while the calculation is in progress. This is why jobs are almost immediately displayed in the job list indentalcnc after you started calculating them in dentalcam.

Tools

dentalcam specifies the tools used in the job calculation based on the manufacturing strategy. dentalcnc ensures that the machine uses the correct tools.

• In dentalcam, you can activate optional tools. This can improve the quality of the manufactured objects.
• dentalcnc offers tool management, including tool life monitoring.

OEM profiles

vhf offers dental milling machines as OEM models to selected business partners. OEM stands for original equipment manufacturer.

When operating dentalcam with an OEM machine, there are OEM profiles that affect the material database. Some materials are limited to specific OEM profiles.

Each installation of dentalcam have 1 OEM profile assigned to it. It is not possible to use multiple OEM profiles within a single installation.

All OEM profiles are included dentalcam. You do not need to install adjusted dentalcam versions.