3D Cone Beam Imaging

How Is It Different from Ordinary Dental X-rays?

Typical dental x-rays just focus on your teeth, and for each x-ray picture, you need one exposure. So it would take many exposures to even begin to compare to a single 3D ConeBeam scan. But 3D ConeBeam Imaging shows much more than simple “flat” x-rays. This new technology provides more complete visual information to study your case from every angle. Best of all, the original scan data can be duplicated anytime, to provide different specialists with images if needed later. And, there’s no film to get lost.

How Does It Work?

The 3D ConeBeam Imaging system is basically a digital x-ray scanner mounted on a rotating arm. (Like a digital camera, it uses digital technology to record images instead of old-fashioned film.) It’s called “ConeBeam” because the scanner projects x-rays in a carefully controlled, cone-shaped beam.

You simply stand in position while the scanner moves in one complete circle around your head, gathering all the scan data needed. There’s no special preparation necessary.

Your dentist can then call up whatever views they need on a computer monitor: 2D, 3D, “panoramic” views of your entire mouth, even sequences like pages in a book. They can view your images from any angle and in different magnifications, to see the relationships between bones, teeth, airways, nerves and tissues; to plan or evaluate your treatment.

And while 3D ConeBeam Imaging produces the same kind of high-quality images as a Medical CT scan, it does so with much less radiation.