Kim Molinaro

David Burns, president & CEO of imagen; Dave Lesh, owner of Dale Dental, Richardson, TX; and Don Albensi, owner of Albensi Dental Laboratory, Irwin, PA, discuss imagen's 3D printing system and production services. The company's booth featured a mock lab setup, including a pair of printing machines, three scanners and furnaces.

Jerry Ragle, owner of Ragle Dental Lab, Champaign, IL, and Nick Ragle, manager-fixed, learn more about 3D Lab Service, which offers an automated method of placing denture teeth into acrylic using CAD software and a rapid prototyping unit.

Geomagic demonstrates its software capabilities to a crowd of IDS attendees. The company is a leader in the field of digital shape sampling and processing (DSSP), and its software has helped to digitally preserve the Statue of Liberty and land a NASA space shuttle. The company's founder, Ping Fu, was Inc. magazine's 2005 Entrepreneur of the Year.

The five-day, biennial show took place in five multi-level buildings in Cologne's Koelnmesse exhibition center on the Rhein River and attracted nearly 100,000 attendees.

Thommen Medical, Straumann and Zimmer were among the dozens of implant companies exhibiting at the show.

"Zirconium Technology: CAD/CAM or Zirconia Milling": proclaims the sign at the Schutz booth. The company now offers laboratories both options: the TiZian™ Mill System, a manual zirconia milling unit, and the TiZian CAD/CAM, a new system launched at the show.

Nobel Biocare's exhibit included the 55-ft. tractor trailer it uses for mobile courses and educating the public on implant options.

For the fourth consecutive show, BEGO hosted more than 350 attendees--including LMT's Managing Editor, Kim Molinaro, and 10 U.S. laboratory owners and technicians--on two houseboats docked on the Rhine River, just over the bridge from the Koelnmesse exhibit center.

Ivoclar Vivadent's Wayne Ledford, CDT, holds up one of the company's new products: e.max CAD LT, a low translucency lithium disilicate block for Sirona inlab and Kavo Everest CAD/CAM units. The blocks are more translucent, milled in the blue state and then crystallized in a porcelain furnace.

Laserdenta and 3shape were just two of the open scanner systems at the show. Open scanners generate an STL file that can then be sent for processing by a milling or 3-D printing unit.

Sirona's new inLab® MC XL milling unit offers faster milling times and can mill bridges up to 10 units.