Put the lower arch back where the patient bites
An intraoral scanner records each arch well on its own. The relationship between the two, the bite, is usually the weakest part of the scan, because it rests on a short buccal registration. Occlusion alignment computes where the lower arch actually sits against the upper, so your design starts from a measured articulation instead of a guess.
Every run finishes by limiting penetration (places where the digital upper and lower models overlap into one another, which real teeth cannot do, so the software resolves it). If you change nothing, your account limit applies and the run shifts the lower arch outward until the deepest penetration is no more than 0.10 mm; the limit can be set anywhere from 0 mm, which switches the step off, up to 0.3 mm.
This is a preflight step for the technician or clinician about to design a restoration. It does not diagnose anything. Check the bite yourself before you build on it, and before any clinical use.
Run a case from upload to download
Create the order
Pick Occlusion alignment, place the upper and the lower on the stage, and give the case your own lab reference. The order is saved before the files finish uploading, so an interrupted transfer leaves a case you can reopen instead of a form to fill in again. Keep patient names out of the case name and out of the filenames.
Attach both arches as a matching pair
Add the upper and the lower as two separate files from the same scan session. Both sides have to be the same kind of source: two mesh files, or two scanner packages, never one of each. A merged scene will not align, and a bite registration on its own does not replace the two arches.
Start the run
Running spends 1 credit. The work happens on our servers, so you can close the tab; the case appears on your dashboard when it finishes.
Check the result before you build on it
Open the case and confirm the two arches are the pair you meant to send and that the contacts land where the bite should close. Use Cut view and the articulator movements to look at what the outer surfaces hide.
Prepare the two scans before you upload
One upper arch and one lower arch, as two separate files from the same scan session. A single merged scene will not align, and a buccal bite registration on its own is not a substitute for the two arches.
Not reliably. The match reads the whole arch, posterior teeth included, so a quadrant either aligns poorly or is turned away. Send the complete arch.
No. Trimming molars or occlusal detail removes exactly the surface the match reads. Lower the export resolution in the scanner instead.
Any scanner that exports an open mesh per arch, and exocad source packages in DCM and HPS, which we convert on our side. There is no separate integration to buy. If the open formats are missing from your export menu, they are usually switched off in the scanner account rather than absent from the device.
No. A whole case runs in the browser. The Connector is an optional Windows program for driving cases from the CAD workstation, and alignment is the only module it covers.
Read the result before you build on it
They are a distance scale. The colour at a point comes from the measured distance in millimetres between that point and the opposing surface: wide gaps stay unpainted, the scale warms as the two surfaces close, and penetration sits at the loaded end. Nothing here is a force or a pressure reading, because the software does not measure bite force. Hover a painted spot to read the measured value at that point.
Because a small overlap is allowed on purpose. Each run shifts the lower arch outward until the deepest penetration is within your account limit, which is 0.10 mm unless it was changed, inside an allowed range of 0 mm to 0.3 mm. The browser has no control for this today: cases started in the browser use the account limit, and the desktop Connector is where the value is exposed, as Max penetration.
The case report lists a confidence score out of 100, a bite quality score out of 100, the number of contact points, the residual fit error in millimetres, and the processing time. The viewer can show the same values in its diagnostics readout.
The viewer flags anything below 70 out of 100 as review advised and anything below 40 as low confidence. Treat those as prompts to look harder, not as a clinical grade: a high score on the wrong pair of arches is still the wrong pair.
Switch on Cut view, which takes an occlusal slice through the pair. Moving the pointer already cuts, so you can sweep the slice through the bite; a click freezes the plane where it stands, and Esc steps back out. There is no numeric depth field, you place it by eye.
Yes, in the articulator panel. Opening goes up to 15 mm, protrusion up to 10 mm, and left or right laterotrusion up to 12 mm, each in 0.05 mm steps and each starting at 0 mm. The panel also states how the hinge was derived, from scan anatomy or from population averages, and the movement arc is only as trustworthy as that.
U and L hide the upper and the lower arch, C toggles the contact marks, Space swaps between the original and the aligned pose, R resets the view, F hides the panels, and P takes a screenshot. Press the question mark key for the full list.
Move the result into your CAD software
The aligned pair. Open both arches in your CAD software; they arrive already positioned in occlusion, so no further seating is needed.
Yes. The articulator panel exports jaw motion for exocad, bundling the four movements with the paired meshes, and it can save an opened position as its own archive. The export is unavailable on a case that carries no articulator data.
No. Download names are built from a two-word code derived from the case, never from the filename you uploaded or the case name you typed. The one exception is the case export archive, which deliberately mirrors what you sent us. Keep patient identifiers out of filenames anyway.
Running a finished case again spends 1 credit, because it is a new run. A run that failed is retried free from the original files, with no new upload.
Yes. Alignment runs on our servers and keeps going without the tab open.
Work through a result that looks wrong
The arches were labelled the wrong way round at export, or the same arch went up twice under two names. Nothing in the file itself says which jaw it is, so the run takes your slots at face value.
Check that the two source files are a genuine pair, re-export both with the jaw named in the file, then run the case again. If it persists on a pair you are sure about, send us the case number.
One arch is a partial scan, or the two arches are not from the same scan session, so there is no shared surface for them to settle onto.
Confirm in your CAD software that the pair belongs together, then retry with the original untrimmed arches. If it still lands wrong, open Adjust and rerun, place the arches roughly into bite by hand and start the run from there; that starting hint fixes most of them. If it persists, send us the case number.
A source mesh was trimmed past the occlusal surface, so there is nothing left for the arches to meet on.
Re-export both arches without trimming and reduce file size through export resolution instead. If the occlusal surfaces are intact and still nothing paints, send us the case number.
The run finished but the geometry did not reach a standard we would stand behind, usually scan noise, missing posterior teeth, or an over-trimmed arch. Your credit is returned in full.
Use Adjust and rerun: place the arches roughly into bite, then exclude loose scan islands, markers and duplicate surfaces with Smart Pick or Manual Brush and start the adjusted rerun from the original files, at no extra cost. If it keeps failing, send us the case number.
Large meshes take longer, and the queue backs up when the service is under load.
Check system status first. If one case is stuck while others move, send us that case number instead of uploading the scan again.