Mastering exocad Fundamentals

exocad opens with more tools, menus and hotkeys than you can sort into an order. A setting chosen wrongly at the start shows itself only at the end of the case, when the design has to be repeated.

By the end of this module you should be able to set up a case in the DentalDB, take a single crown from imported scans to a merged file, and adapt that workflow to offset copings, inlays and onlays, anterior crowns and full-contour bridges. You should also be able to reduce a design for ceramic layering, create printable models with dies, and show a client a problem in your case with cut views, screenshots and browser files.

Marjorie Andrade is a dental technician and CAD designer from Brazil, who started with 3D technology in college in 2014 and became lead CAD designer in a fully digital lab. When she recorded this course in 2023 she ran her own freelance CAD design company with clients worldwide, producing more than 600 units a month. She later worked as a technician at the iDD Lab in New Zealand, and now designs freelance again.

Marjorie recorded the core of this module in 2023 on exocad 3.0 Galway, and added lessons for 3.1 Rijeka and 3.2 Elefsina in 2024. All the information and processes are still clinically relevant; just the exocad versions and their menus are from then.

Eleven chapters, 36 lessons and 253 minutes, with seven quizzes. Chapters 01 and 02 cover the interface, the case setup and a complete single crown, and chapters 03 to 07 apply that workflow to one case type at a time.

Chapter 08 creates printed models, chapter 09 covers client communication and libraries, chapter 10 is a 43-minute multi-unit case from setup to export, and chapter 11 shows what changed in 3.1 Rijeka. Quiz 1 follows chapter 01, quizzes 2 and 3 follow chapter 02, quiz 4 follows chapter 05, quiz 5 follows chapter 06, quiz 6 follows chapter 09 and quiz 7 follows chapter 11.

What you will learn

• Case setup in the DentalDB, because a wrong setting often shows only at the end, when the project has to be repeated
• Wizard Mode and Expert Mode
• Fixing inverted scans and cleaning scan data
• Margin detection, automatic and by hand
• The crown bottom and insertion axis, and why to agree those settings with whoever mills or prints the restoration before you touch them
• Placing and free-forming a tooth, then adapting it to the antagonist and the neighbors
• Offset copings, inlays, onlays and anterior crowns
• Bridges, with diverging abutments, hygienic pontics and connectors
• Reducing a design for porcelain layering
• Printed models with extra dies or removable dies
• Sharing a case with a client through cut views, screenshots, HTML and PDF, and installing new tooth libraries

This course is CPD/CE certified for 4 hours.

You get lifetime access to the course as recorded on exocad 3.0 to 3.2.

Written for dental technicians, dentists and lab or clinic staff who are starting with exocad and want a structured way through its tools and functions. It assumes nothing in exocad. The STL practice files to design along with Marjorie come with the course.

Implant cases, wax-up design, bite splints and full-arch work are not in this module. They belong to the other two modules of Mastering exocad, Intermediate and Advanced, and exocad 3.3 Chemnitz is not covered by any lesson. If you have never opened exocad, the free exocad for Beginners – Tools and Workflow course is a place to look around first.

Sold on its own or with the other two modules as the full Mastering exocad course.