You scanned the case. Your lab still wants a PVS impression.

<p>You bought the scanner. iTero, Trios, Medit, Primescan, CEREC, Emerald S, take your pick, and the check cleared somewhere between $30K and $60K. You captured the prep in eight minutes, the buccal bite in two, and hit send. Then the lab called back and asked for a PVS impression. Or a stone model. Or a wax bite shipped by courier. That request is not a small ask. It is a signal that your lab has not actually gone digital, they have gone digital-labeled.</p><p>This shows up most often for general dentists running a restorative practice who invested in intraoral scanning during the 2022 to 2024 cycle and kept the same lab they used for the last decade. It also lands hard on prosthodontists sending anterior cases, where a rescan-from-print destroys the sub-20-micron margin data you captured chairside. And it hits oral surgeons and periodontists submitting implant cases, because the scan-body geometry does not survive a print-and-rescan cycle without stitching drift.</p><p>The workflow regression is the pain. You paid to skip PVS setting time, courier windows, and stone-model turnaround. Every case your lab converts back to analog erases that spend, one case at a time.</p>

<p>Labs ask for physical impressions in 2025 for four concrete reasons. First, legacy CAD systems that were not updated to accept STL, PLY, or native proprietary exports (Trios .dcm, iTero .iRecord via MyAligntech, Primescan .dxd via Connect Case Center). Second, milling equipment that requires a physical model as fabrication reference because the lab never built a model-free milling protocol. Third, design staff trained only on model-based workflows, where nobody on the bench can design directly from an intraoral scan file. Fourth, revenue models built around courier volume and shipped-case reimbursement.</p><p>Here is the mechanism that costs you money without anyone naming it. A lab that calls itself digital-friendly will accept your STL, then print a model from the STL, then scan the printed model, then design from the rescan. That is two conversion losses per case (STL to print, print to rescan) and 2 to 4 extra days of turnaround. Every conversion introduces geometric drift at the margin, which is exactly where crown fit lives or dies. This is why a lab that asks for physical impressions and a lab with a rising remake rate are usually the same lab.</p>

<p>Dani Dental runs a full digital pipeline end to end and accepts any scanner file format on the market. STL, PLY, OBJ, DCM for CBCT overlay, plus native exports from iTero, 3Shape Trios, Medit, Primescan, CEREC, Emerald S, Aoralscan, Launca, Panda, and Runyes. Upload the scan to the case portal, enter the Rx and shade reference, and the technician on your case designs directly from your intraoral capture. No printed model. No rescan. No courier. Bite comes from your buccal scan, margin from a 20 micron capture protocol, shade from calibrated cross-polarized photography using the eLAB reference.</p><p>Every case ships with the technician's direct line and a designed STL returned for chairside review before milling. On full-arch and implant work, the scan-body protocol plus CBCT overlay stays in one file set from guide design through final prosthetic, which is the workflow oral surgeons and periodontists lose when they split guide fabrication and prosthetic delivery across two labs. If your current lab is the reason you have not seen the ROI on your scanner, the switching cost is one uploaded case.</p>