Before you start

What this guide covers

This guide follows one complete clear-aligner case, from two optical scans through to generated aligner files, in the order the work actually happens. It is a quick start: enough to take a real case all the way through, plus the tools around each step that the case itself did not need.

The case it follows is an ordinary one — an upper and a lower intra-oral scan, no CBCT, no extractions, aligners at the end of it. Where the software offers a choice the case did not take, the step says so in a short "More on this page" section rather than walking it.

Not covered in this guide:

• CBCT cases. The software accepts a CBCT volume and uses it for real roots, bone density and root-collision checking. Loading and registering a CBCT adds two stages before the work in step 2, and none of that is described here. This case builds its roots without radiographic data, and step 4 says what that means for the checks the software can perform.
• Brackets and bonding guides. OrthoPlus designs bracket bonding guides for fixed appliances. Because the case has no brackets on its teeth, the workflow takes the aligner branch throughout, and the bracket path is not shown.
• Extractions and pontics, beyond a note in step 12 on the setting that keeps space for an aligner across an extraction site.
• Implant planning, which is a separate product.
• Trimming paths and robotic trimming. The files can be generated; setting up a trimmer is outside this guide.
• Clinical protocol. The guide says what each control does and what to look at. It does not tell you which attachment shape suits which movement, how much interproximal reduction is appropriate, or how long to wear a step. Those belong with your own protocol.

The shape of the work

Whatever route a case takes, treatment planning in OrthoPlus has the same five stages behind it. Knowing them makes the step order obvious:

1. Preparation. The patient's scans come in — intra-oral scans, and a CT scan where there is one, from which anatomical structures are modelled. Optical scans of stone models or of the patient's dentition are imported and aligned with those structures. Steps 1 to 5.
2. Viewing and diagnosis. Measurement and the recording of diagnostic findings, alongside the planning tools rather than separate from them. Step 7 covers the display maps used for this.
3. Planning. Tooth movement, articulation adjustment and visualisation. Steps 6, 8 and 9.
4. Design. The software designs the models from which aligners are later made. Steps 10 to 12.
5. Manufacturing. A lab produces the appliances from the exported files, with no or trivial post-processing. Outside this guide.

What an arch model is made of

Step 11 generates arch models — a series of models representing the teeth as they move from their initial positions to the final planned ones, one model per step, which a lab prints and thermoforms aligners over. They are also referred to as orthodontic models; the two terms mean the same thing.

Each one has four elements, and it helps to recognise them before you generate a hundred of them:

• A base, with the case tag on it where you have set one
• A soft-tissue area, whose geometry morphs along with the tooth movement
• The individual teeth
• Attachments, bonded to the tooth surfaces so that an aligner can generate more force to move a tooth

Step 12 generates aligners instead — the shells themselves, printed directly, with no arch model and no thermoforming in between.

What you need on the computer

OrthoPlus is a 64-bit Windows application. There is no 32-bit build and no macOS version. The installer carries the runtime components it needs, so there is nothing to install first.

The hardware requirement that matters is the one the AI Engine enforces, because the AI Engine is what makes segmentation accurate and much of the design automatic:

• Windows 10 or later
• At least 16 GB of RAM
• An NVIDIA RTX graphics card — RTX 2060 or newer. Professional cards that use a different numbering scheme, such as the RTX A-series and the Ada generation, qualify on their video memory instead of their model number.

A machine below that line still runs OrthoPlus. It tells you so plainly, and the sentence to note is its own:

"GuideMia will continue to run without AI. Tooth segmentation will be derived from model curvature and will often need manual adjustment."

That is the practical consequence: everything in this guide still works, but step 5 becomes considerably more hands-on. The check is remembered per graphics card rather than repeated at every launch, so fitting a qualifying card re-enables the offer.

Installing

Download the installer from the link in your purchase or trial email, or from your account page, and run it. It is an ordinary Windows installer.

You can install before you buy — the download is not what is gated. The software will run as far as the activation dialog and stop there.

On first run OrthoPlus asks for a language. That choice carries one consequence worth getting right: it also sets the tooth-numbering scheme the software displays. You can change the language later from the settings.

After the licence check, OrthoPlus offers to set up the AI Engine. Let it. The engine downloads and installs itself, and it is what step 5 depends on. If you skip it or the machine does not qualify, you can return to it later from the Help menu under "GuideMia AI Engine", which can also install from a file you already have.

A companion program, GuideMia DesignBot, installs alongside for model-building work.

Licensing

The software is licensed per machine, and it must be activated before it will work on a case.

What you can hold. OrthoPlus is normally a subscription, monthly or annual, which grants unlimited use. A 15-day free trial is available to customers who have not held a subscription for the product before. Where recurring payment is not possible, prepaid access periods of 3 or 12 months do the same job as a one-time payment. A lifetime licence exists for some tiers. And there is a pay-per-case route, where the subscription itself grants nothing and each billable action draws on a credit wallet instead.

Which one you are on matters mostly at generation time: on a metered arrangement, producing models and aligners consumes credits, and an empty wallet stops files being written. Step 11 mentions this because it is the first thing to check if a generation run completes without producing anything.

Activating. Activation happens at the dialog on first run, and you can return to it at any time from the system menu (☰). Two kinds of code exist, and they behave differently: a master code can be reactivated as long as it remains valid, while an export-credit code cannot be reactivated at all. Fill in every line of the user-information table — a partly completed form is a common cause of an activation that appears to do nothing — and look for the confirmation message, which is the success signal. If none appears, retry before assuming it worked.

The machine needs to be online for activation and for the periodic licence check, though the traffic involved is negligible. A connection that carries everything else and still fails activation usually points at anti-virus software blocking the licence server rather than at the connection itself.

One machine at a time. Activating a second computer releases the first. Moving to a new machine is therefore a matter of activating on the new one, not of uninstalling from the old.

Working offline. Once activated, OrthoPlus keeps working without a connection for a period. Work done offline is queued and reconciled when the machine reconnects.

How to read this guide

Steps run in the order the work happens, and each one ends by saying where you are and what has to be true before the next step can start. Two steps break that pattern and are meant to be returned to rather than read through:

• Step 7 covers the display maps — the colour overlays you turn on to judge contacts, bone and movement. Steps 6, 8 and 9 all point back to it.
• Step 12 is aligner generation, which is where part two of the case picks up.

Controls are named the way they appear on screen, quoted exactly, including the occasional typo in the software's own text — those are marked [sic] so you know it is not a mistake in the guide.

Terms used in this guide