Capturing images

To capture images, begin by ensuring that your camera is connected and working. If it is an intra-oral camera, be sure its optical window is clean, then equip it with a newly opened sterile sheath. Be sure to position the sheath so that the camera’s view window is not obscured by non-transparent or wrinkled areas, which will cause distortion in captured photographs.

If you’re not already looking at CaptureDent’s™ “Capture” page, click the tab to go to that page.

Turn your camera’s source illuminator on and aim it at a suitable subject — your own teeth, those of an assistant, or some other object with small detail you’d like to observe. You should see a live preview image in the middle of the CaptureDent screen, showing whatever is in the camera’s field of view. If your camera allows, you may focus, adjust lighting, and so forth, using the live preview as a guide to determine the settings that provide the best picture.

The Capture, Cancel, and Toggle functions

Depending on the control method you choose, up to three picture-taking functions will be available to you at this point. If you performed the controller configuration during start-up, you might recognize the choices:

• Capture — take a photo and return immediately to live preview.
• Cancel — if in freeze-frame, return to live preview without keeping photo.
• Toggle — if in live preview, freeze frame; if frozen, keep photo and return to live preview.

There are several ways to trigger picture-taking functions. You can do one or more of the following…

• Use your mouse, light pen, or other pointing device to click the buttons on the toolbar to the left of the preview display.
• Use the pointing device to click the preview display itself.
• Use a pedal or other controller, if one is attached and configured.

These methods are completely interchangeable. That is, you can start an operation using one method, then finish using another. It doesn’t matter to the software whether, at any given moment, you click a button or step on a pedal — as long as you trigger the right picture-taking function, CaptureDent will do what you want it to do.

Click the toolbar buttons

There’s a button on the “Capture” toolbar for each of the three picture-taking functions.

The top-most button operates the Capture function when you click it, taking a photograph and immediately returning to live preview, ready to snap another picture.

The other two buttons work together. The first operates CaptureDent’s Toggle function once with each click — if you click it when a live preview is showing, it will freeze the frame so you can examine it. If you want to keep the image, click the button again; the image will be saved and you’ll return to live preview.

If, after inspecting a frozen frame, you decide you’d rather not keep it, click the bottom-most of the three buttons to Cancel the freeze and return to live preview, where you can try again.

Click the live preview display

If you’re used to CaptureDent’s predecessor, Capture-It Plus™, this technique will be familiar. It can be convenient when using a light pen while gloved — it’s very easy to push the pen toward the large preview area, requiring less manual precision than clicking the toolbar buttons.

Clicking your pointing device in the live preview area is another way to operate the Toggle function. That is, if the preview is live, a click will freeze-frame, while if the preview has already been frozen, clicking a second time will save the image and return to live preview.

There’s no way to cancel a frozen frame without keeping it by clicking in the preview area. However, you can click the “Cancel photo” button even if you didn’t use the toolbar buttons to freeze the frame. Alternatively, you can delete the photo later, on the “Review” page.

Use a pedal or other controller

The easiest picture-taking method, and the one most providers prefer, is to use a pedal or other switch-based controller to operate CaptureDent’s image capture system.

Any controller that meets the minimum system requirements can be used to command CaptureDent to snap photos via the Capture function. Controllers providing two or more independently working switches can also provide the Toggle and/or Cancel functions, depending on how the switches are arranged.

For complete details on configuring your pedal or other controller, see the Configuring pedals and other controllers section in the Reference chapter of this manual.

Assigning mouth regions to photos

A mouth region may be any of the following…

• one or more teeth, designated by number;
• a quadrant of the mouth; or
• an arch, upper or lower.

You may assign a mouth region to any photo using the fourth button on the “Capture” page’s toolbar, with the tooth icon. Categorizing your images this way lets you perform powerful image searches.

If you know which area you’ll be taking picture of, click the “Region” button before taking the picture. Using the dialog box that pops up, choose the desired region. From then on, all photos you take will be tagged with a code representing that region.

When you visit the “Review” page, each thumbnail image will display the mouth region assigned to it, if any, for easy reference.

Where did the photos go?

Each photograph that you keep is stored in a file on your computer’s storage system. Information about the image is stored in the CaptureDent database.

To see the pictures you’ve taken, be sure the patient you’re interested in is active (if not, select that patient on the “Patients” page before continuing). Then go to the “Review” page to see that patient’s images.