By Dr Gerald Loh, Options Dental Care, Narellan, NSW
The Omnicam is the latest iteration of the Cerec restorative system. It is a completely new way of scanning the mouth and teeth. It is differentiated from its predecessors in that it captures data points on a three-dimensional plane with a live video image.
What’s good about it
It’s a powderless system. All the previous Cerec systems captured data with static images requiring a contrast medium. This meant that powder had to be placed on the tooth preparation.
I’ve been using the Cerec system for years but I was never happy tossing powder onto someone’s fresh implant site. I would go through a great deal of effort to keep the whole area sterile and then spray powder all over it. Even though the powder doesn’t affect anything, I was still uncomfortable with the process. And it’s a messy clean-up.
As the Omnicam uses a 3D video image capture, it has also done away with parallax error. The camera technology has improved so much that the unit is smaller, more ergonomic and faster. It only takes a couple of seconds to take an image.
What’s not so good
It’s expensive and requires another Cerec upgrade. I’ve been through three of them—Redcam, Bluecam and now Omnicam—but if you’re a heavy Cerec user and want to go powderless, it’s worthwhile.
Where do you get it
Sirona (Martin Capstick).
