Intraoral Scanner vs. Traditional Impressions

For decades, traditional impression materials were the only option for capturing a patient’s dental anatomy. Today, intraoral scanners for dentists offer a digital alternative that’s faster, more comfortable, and often more accurate. But traditional impressions still have a place in some workflows. Here’s how the two compare.

The Traditional Impression Process

Traditional impressions use a tray filled with PVS or alginate material, seated in the patient’s mouth and held in place while the material sets. Once removed, the impression is either poured into a stone model in-house or shipped to an outside lab for model fabrication. This process is familiar and well understood, but it comes with some drawbacks: potential gagging and discomfort for patients, the risk of voids, tears, or distortion in the material, and the added time and shipping involved in getting a physical impression to a lab.

How Intraoral Scanning Works

An intraoral scanner captures a digital impression by passing a small wand over the teeth and gums, building a 3D digital model in real time. There’s no tray, no setting material, and no risk of a mouth full of impression material triggering a gag reflex. The resulting digital file can be sent instantly to a lab, or used immediately in-house with dental milling equipment or a 3D printer to begin same-day fabrication.

Comparing Accuracy

Modern digital dentistry scanners, such as the Aoralscan 3 or Aoralscan Elite, have closed much of the accuracy gap that once existed between digital and traditional methods. In many cases, digital scans now outperform traditional impressions, particularly for full-arch cases, where distortion in a large PVS impression is more likely than with a stitched-together digital scan. Traditional impressions can still perform well for single-unit cases in experienced hands, but they’re more sensitive to technique, moisture control, and material handling than digital scanning tends to be.

Patient Experience

This is one of the clearest differentiators. Traditional impressions are uncomfortable for many patients, particularly those with a strong gag reflex or claustrophobia. Intraoral scanning eliminates this discomfort almost entirely, and many practices find that patients specifically notice and appreciate the switch to digital impression scanners, especially patients who’ve experienced both methods and can compare them directly.

Speed and Workflow

A traditional impression takes several minutes to set, plus additional time for disinfection, packaging, and shipping if it’s going to an outside lab. An intraoral scan can be captured in a few minutes chairside, and the resulting file is immediately ready to send digitally or use in-house. When paired with CAD/CAM dental design software and a mill or printer, this creates a same-day workflow that traditional impressions simply can’t match, since a physical impression still has to become a model before design work can begin.

Intraoral Scanners We Offer

The brands we carry take slightly different approaches to replacing the traditional impression tray:

Shining 3D’s Aoralscan 3 and Aoralscan Elite are purpose-built intraoral scanners known for fast, high-accuracy wireless scanning across restorative, periodontal, and scan-body cases, with AI-assisted processing that helps streamline chairside scanning.

Carestream’s CS 3800 is a lightweight, cordless intraoral scanner with an enlarged 16 mm x 14 mm field of view and a 21 mm depth of field, making it easier to capture interproximal areas, subgingival margins, and emergence profiles. Its CS ScanFlow software supports restorative, orthodontic, sleep, and denture indications, and connects to an open ecosystem of CAD/CAM and lab partners, a strong fit for practices already using Carestream’s imaging platform.

Ray America’s Object Scan, built into the RAYSCAN Studio CBCT system, takes a different approach: rather than scanning directly inside the mouth, it digitizes a physical impression or model into an open STL file. For practices not ready to fully replace traditional impressions chairside, this offers a bridge, keeping the familiar impression-taking process while still generating a digital file for CAD/CAM design, milling, or printing.

Cost Considerations

Traditional impression materials have a low per-case material cost, but they carry hidden costs in the form of remakes due to voids or distortion, shipping fees, and staff time spent on disinfection and packaging. Intraoral scanners for dentists require a larger upfront investment, but this cost is offset over time through reduced material costs, fewer remakes, and the ability to bring more production in-house.

Is It Time to Make the Switch?

For most practices, the decision comes down to workflow goals rather than any single technical advantage. A practice looking to reduce remakes, speed up case turnaround, and improve the patient experience will generally see a strong return from switching to an intraoral scanner for sale. Practices with very low case volume, or team members who are already highly skilled and consistent with traditional impressions, may see a longer path to ROI, and a model-scanning option like Ray America’s Object Scan can offer a lower-friction first step toward digital workflows.

Considering the Switch to Digital?

Esthetic Professionals uses intraoral scanners daily in our own laboratory and private practice, and we can walk you through exactly what the transition looks like for your specific case mix. Contact our Distribution Center to talk with Drs. Bruce and Kristi Crispin and our team about which scanner is the right fit for your practice.