Hacker News Reader

Comment by jeffchuber | Hacker News Reader

Awesome work!

The animation definitely seems the most difficult (and subjective), but also the most cool! Body hacking via computed geometry!

Invisalign (align technology) uses almost the same workflow. Market cap $5.89B.

If you could move the workflow over to something based on WebGL / three.js - you could make this accessible to dentists in developing countries. Could be an awesome open source project.

I think "allowing" it to be used in the US would open yourself up to too much liability though :(

View on HN

Invisalign seems to be mostly used for cosmetic fixes. That doesn't seem too compelling for a dentist in a developing country.

People in developing countries need and want to look good just like everybody else. "Developing country" is pretty much the whole world, except Western Europe, North America, Japan, and Australia / NZ.

Do you imagine people in countries east of Austria as ugly bunch with crooked teeth, because we're developing and never heard of cosmetic dentistry?

Actually, the usual place to stereotype as having crooked teeth is the UK, which is firmly in the "developed" group of countries.

To answer your question, no, "crooked teeth" isn't in the usual list of stereotypes people have about Eastern Europeans.

A counterpoint in the form of a "humorous" travel guide for a Eastern European fictional country: http://www.amazon.com/Molvania-Untouched-Modern-Dentistry-Je...

That doesn't answer my question.

IMHO in the UK teeth straighting is perceived as extremely vain. So in the UK straighting teeth is more a taboo than not.

Huh? Orthodontics are free in the UK up til 19, and it's very normal to have braces.

Maybe amongst an older generation who'd have to go out their way to pay for straightening.

Again I show I have been away from home to long.

I'm about 2/3 done with using Invisalign for fixing some pretty severe bite issues. Had I not had anything done, my jaw joint would have continued deteriorating, likely to the point of needing surgery; I was also at higher risk of having teeth break from the added stress (very few of my teeth actually were making proper contact with each other).

The first step of the process was actually removing two of my bottom teeth; the rest of my teeth have then been adjusted to fill the gaps. It's been a long process (almost two years in), and I'm sick of having these stupid plastic things in my mouth all of the time. But it's definitely been more useful than just for cosmetics (though that's a nice side benefit).

I live in a developing country. Most of the dentists here offer Invisalign.

You'd be surprised. I work for a company that manages the technical side of a famiky of brace systems (one of which is a direct competitor to Invision). A lot of activity happening in places I'd least expect.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com