Uploading steps

Each step of a treatment carries the upper jaw (maxilla) and lower jaw (mandible) models of that stage. The viewer plays the steps in order.

How steps are numbered

• Step 0 is the scan before treatment. The patient sees it as Before treatment.
• Later steps continue from there: 1, 2, 3 …
• A step may have only one jaw. That is normal when one jaw finishes earlier than the other: the viewer keeps showing the finished jaw's last model and tells the patient so.
• A step can have a label that is shown instead of the number, for example Attachments placed.

Uploading a whole treatment at once

On the treatment page, Steps → Upload steps and choose all the model files your planning software exported.

• Which jaw is read from the file name: maxilla, upper, üst or top means the upper jaw; mandible, lower, alt or bottom means the lower jaw.
• Which step comes from one of two choices:
  • From the file names — the first number of up to three digits: step02_upper.ply becomes step 2. Longer numbers, such as dates and times, are ignored.
  • In file-name order, starting from a number — for exports whose names carry only a time stamp. Files are numbered in name order per jaw, starting from the number you enter (usually 0).
• Files for a step and jaw that already has a model are skipped, unless you tick Replace existing files for the same step and jaw.

When the upload finishes, a message tells you how many steps were created or updated and lists every file that was skipped, with the reason.

One step at a time

Steps → New step adds a single step: its number, an optional label, and one file per jaw. Use it to add a step you missed or to replace one model.

What a file must be

• PLY in binary format, as exported by planning software and intraoral scanners. Colours in the file are shown in the viewer.
• Up to 10 MB per file.
• Text (ASCII) PLY files are refused with a message, because they cannot be displayed. Export again as binary PLY.

Each jaw cell in the steps table shows the file size and the number of points of the stored model, so you can spot an unexpected file at a glance.