Soon X-rays, paper files, and drills will be a thing of the past as dentistry welcomes and enters the digital era. Drills are giving way to lasers and air abrasion. Digital tomography is replacing X-rays. Files stuffed with charts are replaced by an online database. And dental students hone their skills on realistic dummies, with 3D virtual reality simulations on the horizon.
For example, with digital radiography, patients bite down on a small 1.0 x 1.5 in. image sensor instead of on a film card. The image is displayed in real-time on an ordinary PC, can be manipulated, annotated and placed in the patient’s digital file with the click of a mouse. The sensor costs $6,000 apiece but they are reusable (after a thourough cleaning, of course).
Read the article at: Wired.