We had a great experience at the 3Shape exhibition. The team at 3Shape were very open at talking to us about their products and had many experienced members of the development team present to elaborate further about their products.
Overall it seems that this was a success for 3Shape. They have released a number of new products at this IDS that seem very promising and it is great to see that competition is still very healthy in CAD/CAM and Digital Dentistry.
Here is an overview of some of the new products from the 3Shape Booth:
Chairside
The TRIOS 4 is the new generation scanner by 3Shape. Not a completely new scanner, it works on further improving the many strengths of the TRIOS 3 while also adding a lot of extras.
The TRIOS 4 looks great. It has improved on the design on the TRIOS 3 and added a modern and sleek black and red colour pattern. Apart from some minor design changes, it is very similar to the TRIOS 3.
Some of the main features of the new scanner are the new Smart Tips, these are the new scanner heads for the TRIOS 4 which work to allow instant scanning without the requirement of a heat-up time. We are also told that because of this and improvements to the battery, the battery life on the wireless models is also improved by 30%.
The TRIOS 4 also boasts smoother and faster scanning than the TRIOS 3.
The interesting additions to the TRIOS 4 are the fluorescent technology that has been added. Using the principle of fluorescence-based caries detection, it is claimed that the TRIOS 4 can aid in the detection of surface caries.
This is an additional scan that can be taken after the first colour scan. Although based on well established and research principles, the accuracy and reliability of this in the TRIOS 4 will need to be established.
There is also an additional scanning tip that is added, a transillumination smart tip. Again, based on the principle of transillumination for caries detection, this scanning tip allows for detection of inter-proximal caries.
Overall these are some very innovative and, in our opinion, welcomed additions to the TRIOS scanner.
There have been a number of improvements to the software for both the TRIOS 4 and additional modules. The design studio has been improved and overall looks more modern.
The smile design software has had additional textures added to it. There have been improvements to the implant studio and overall the software is said to be optimised and should be working better
The move has had an upgrade too with a bigger screen. Apart from that the TRIOS MOVE is still the same and can be combined with the TRIOS 4.
Lab Side
At IDS, 3Shape also released their new lab scanner the 3Shape E4. Overall, this again is a large improvement from the previous generation scanner. It boasts being one of the fastest lab scanners on the market with an 11 second time to scan a model. It is also more accurate than the previous E3 scanner.
There has been a number of optimisations to the lab software. The main addition is the splint design software. This looks to be promising and we saw a demo of it at IDS. The workflow is straightforward and allows STI exportation for printing or milling of splints.