Systems and methods are disclosed to prevent interference between two
physical tooth models in a physical dental arch model by acquiring the
coordinates of a plurality of points on the surfaces of each of the two
physical tooth models and digitally representing the surfaces of each of
the two physical tooth models by a mesh of points in three dimensions
using the acquired coordinates. The meshes representing the surfaces of
the two physical tooth models intersect at least at one point to form an
overlapping portion. The method also includes calculating the depth of
the overlapping portion between the two meshes to quantify the
interference of the two physical tooth models.