On Surface Features of Canine Strategic Teeth by Metal Additive Manufacturing and Investment Casting—A Comparative Study

Investment casting (IC) and direct metal laser sintering (DMLS) are commercially established technologies for the manufacturing of dental crowns (DC) and implants in the case of humans as well as veterinary patients (VP). But hitherto, little has been reported on comparing surface features of prepared DC for strategic teeth (ST) in the case of VP by IC and DMLS. This study portrays the surface morphological analysis of DC fabricated by IC and DMLS. Further comparison was made with an extracted tooth from a cadaver and die stone model (obtained via reverse prototype technique for canine). The novel computerized imaging techniques were used for the analysis of grain structure, porosity, surface roughness (Ra), amplitude distribution function (ADF), peak count (PC), bearing ratio curve (BRC) with the extracted tooth from the cadaver for prosthodontic veterinary applications. Further, the fitting of DC was analysed for dimensional stability in each stage of manufacturing as per international tolerance (IT) grades. The study also suggests that the prepared DC by IC and DMLS has better surface properties (in terms of Ra, grain size, porosity, etc.) than the natural tooth extracted from the cadaver.