Chitubox Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer Xinfu Xie details the dental 3D printing workflow using CHITUBOX Dental, a cutting-edge preprocessing software tailored specifically for the dental industry. The software supports over 160 models of light curing 3D printers and streamlines complex processes with one-click automation for common dental applications, significantly increasing efficiency and accuracy. Designed to address the key challenges of cost, accessibility, and accuracy, CHITUBOX Dental allows clinics and factories to create high-quality dental models using consumer-grade printers, reducing costs. while improving patient outcomes. Backed by years of expertise in light curing technology and collaboration with dental experts, Mr. Xie and his team are driving a new era of efficiency and precision in digital dentistry.
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3DPI: Can you describe the application?
Xie Xinfu: CHITUBOX Dental is a photocuring 3D printing preprocessing and workflow software designed specifically for the dental industry. In collaboration with printer manufacturers, we currently support pre-processing for over 160 types of photocuring printers. A distinguishing feature is the ability to achieve one-click automatic pretreatment for the most common dental application scenarios, which significantly increases work efficiency and reduces the difficulty of getting started.
Whether in the factory or the clinic, CHITUBOX Dental users will experience unprecedented convenience and efficiency.
3DPI: How does your application address a specific unmet need in the medical, dental, or healthcare field? And how does it impact patient care and treatment outcomes? Do you think it is?
Xie Xinfu: This can be discussed in three aspects: effectiveness, efficiency, and economy. First, in terms of effectiveness, this is the most basic point. Starting at the software level, the user should be provided with sufficient tools to optimize printing accuracy. At the end of the day, it's the printer and material that have the biggest impact on accuracy. Second, efficiency is key, as users in the dental industry often have limited knowledge about 3D printing. Being able to create models quickly is important. We have thoroughly optimized the software for ease of use, resiliency, and performance. Finally, economics is also a factor. Traditional dental printers are relatively expensive. With optimizations specifically for the dental industry, CHITUBOX Dental allows users to achieve the same results with traditional consumer-grade printers as professional machines, significantly reducing costs for clinics and factories. .
Additionally, the software includes hollowing out features to reduce material usage per model. Improved printing accuracy improves the patient treatment experience by reducing or eliminating the need for secondary adjustments after the patient has placed the crown. Efficiency and economy ultimately benefit each patient by reducing time and financial costs.
3DPI: Can you describe the most significant technical or engineering challenge you faced while developing the application and how you overcame it?
Xie Xinfu: Before developing CHITUBOX Dental, we had already accumulated many years of experience in the photocuring pretreatment field. Our CHITUBOX Basic and CHITUBOX Pro software has consistently enjoyed a high market share in the global photocuring 3D printing industry and has many loyal users in the dental field. However, it turns out that the dental industry has very high precision requirements. Optimizing accuracy is a complex problem that involves the performance of the materials and the printer itself. Since the software acts as a link between the material and the printer process, it must ensure both printing success and accuracy during the pre-processing stage. Therefore, we had to dig into specific printing scenarios and abstract and extract parameters and functions that could optimize accuracy. During this process, we conducted thorough communication and research with printer manufacturers, material suppliers, technicians, and physicians.
3DPI: How has your innovation streamlined or improved efficiency in medical procedures, manufacturing, patient recovery times, etc.?
Xie Xinfu: CHITUBOX Dental targets the most commonly used printer scenarios in dentistry, extracting model features for automatic orientation, hollowing, filling, drilling, and layout operations . Additionally, the software systematically improves processing efficiency and can complete processing of 16 dental models, including orientation, hollowing, filling, drilling, layout, and slicing, in just 45 seconds. Traditional software often takes 5 to 10 minutes to process 16 models. This one step saves factories 2080 hours per year. Combined with lightening treatment, this saves 2,500 kg of material per year. We believe these efficiency improvements will ultimately benefit all patients.
3DPI: What role do collaborations with medical experts and research institutions play in the development process, and how do these partnerships impact innovation?
Xie Xinfu: Through communication with professional dentists, we gained a deeper understanding of the real issues that need to be addressed in the 3D printing process. By exchanging ideas with them, we were able to develop better solutions to many problems. Of course, there are still some problems in this process, which we will continue to communicate and gradually resolve.
3DPI: Can you share any case studies or patient outcomes that highlight the real-world benefits of your technology?
Xie Xinfu: Some of our printer manufacturer partners have incorporated material process packages into our software for end-use by physicians. The doctors were able to complete the model preprocessing with just a few mouse clicks and achieved good results. This type of case is also common in daily communication with users.
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