Patent 11037466 was granted and assigned to Align Technology on June, 2021 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
The current document is directed to methods and systems that provide semi-automated and automated training to technicians who use oral-cavity-imaging-and-modeling systems to accurately and efficiently generate three-dimensional models of patients' teeth and underlying tissues. The training methods and systems are implemented either as subsystems within oral-cavity-imaging-and-modeling systems or as separate system in electronic communication oral-cavity-imaging-and-modeling systems. The training methods and systems use an already generated, digital, three-dimensional model of a portion of the oral cavity of a particular patient or of a physical model of a portion of an oral cavity to compute a temporal, translational, and rotational trajectory of an oral-cavity-imaging-and-modeling endoscope, or wand, during a training scan. The temporal, translational, and rotational trajectory is used for a variety of different types of instruction and instructional feedback to facilitate training of technicians.