METHOD OF DETERMINING WEAR ON A DENTAL SCALER TOOL AND TOOL HOLDER THEREFOR

摘要

A method in which a digital picture of the tip of a dental scaler tool and other uniquely identifying characteristics is used to measure the extent of wear on the tool. Unique characteristics of the dental scaler tool, such as color and shape of the grip, narrow a set of reference images to a subset of likely matching tip reference images. A digital contour of the worn tip is isolated. Characteristics of the physical shape of each available tips have been stored in a digital library of reference images. The same tip shape characteristics are developed for the tip contour that were stored for each reference image. The digital profile of the worn tip and a matching, selected reference image of the tip from a library of digitally overlaid. An accurate measurement of the extent of wear of the insert tip is made and displayed.