HYPOTHESIS AND THEORY article
Front. Oral Health
Sec. Oral Health Promotion
This article is part of the Research TopicCutting-Edge Technologies in Digital DentistryView all 5 articles
DUCU: A Conceptual Framework for AI-driven Conversion of Smile Design to Functional Wax-up
Provisionally accepted
- Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Bucharest, Romania
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The rapid evolution of aesthetic digital dentistry, patient-centered tools were developed such as Digital Smile Design to help improving patient communication and emotional participation. However, a major difference remains between these purely aesthetically simulations and the functional accuracy necessary with Computer-Aided Design/Computer-Aided Manufacturing restorative workflows. In this paper, we present the conceptual basis for a new, intelligent, Computer-Aided Design/Computer-Aided Manufacturing (CAD/CAM) wax-up design theory called Dental Unified CAD Utility. This platform includes advanced artificial intelligence algorithms for tooth morphology, margin detection, intaglio surface generation and occlusal correspondence, to combine emotional aesthetics with clinical function. Through facilitation of interdisciplinary teamwork and automation of restorative design workflows, Dental Unified CAD Utility sets out to drastically decrease laboratory time, reduce human errors and boost treatment predictability. We describe implications and barriers to clinical implementation and future research directions necessary for the development and validation of the Dental Unified CAD Utility as a transformative tool in digital prosthodontics.
Keywords: Digital smile design, artificial intelligence, CAD/CAM prosthetics, aestheticsmile simulation, digital wax-up
Received: 21 Aug 2025; Accepted: 31 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Drafta, Macris and Petre. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Andrei Macris, andrei.macris@umfcd.ro
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