A method is presented for rapidly making and delivering directly to a
consumer a full upper and/or lower denture on the basis of
contemporaneous digital image information laser scanned from the person's
oral cavity after all respective upper and/or lower teeth have been
removed, the delivery of the denture occurring substantially
contemporaneously with the creation of the contemporaneous digital image
information and optionally including and based on archived digital image
information laser scanned from the person's oral cavity before all
respective upper and/or lower teeth have been removed and digitally
stored. According to which this contemporaneous digital image information
and archival digital image information of the oral cavity is converted,
by means of what is called the rapid prototyping technique and thus with
a processing step (20) and a combination of an optional laser scanning
step (18) solely for archiving the oral cavity when upper and/or lower
teeth are present and a repetition of the laser scanning step (18) at a
subsequent time when upper and/or lower teeth have been removed, a
pre-selected block of plastic is used in a processing step (26) at a
remote rapid modeling facility for receiving and processing digital
information to form the block of plastic or like material into a denture
of which at least a part is formed to substantially perfectly fit in
juxtaposed relationship to the corresponding gums of the consumer. At
least, pre-selected outer or non-juxtaposing is selected for manufacture
of the denture using an arbitrary archived digital image not derived from
the consumer's oral cavity image but selected by the consumer for its
style, cosmetic characteristics, for example, color of teeth, size and
variety of teeth, and/or perceived suitability.