Methods: In this descriptive study, a software was developed for dental cast simulation and analysis. This software was developed by Visual Basic. The features of this software were: High speed; Real-time rotation of the cast; Moving, translation and zooming the cast by the selected range; Cutting and removing different parts of the cast; Clip far that is the omission of the points until reaching the cusp tip; Distance measurement with 0.1 mm accuracy; Ease of application and training; Small size of the program (less than 400 KB). For assessing the simulator accuracy, 3 variables (intercanine width, intermolar width, and arch depth) were measured on 20 plaster study casts with 5 categories. The parameters were measured in the simulator and on the cast manually by digital caliper. They were compared by means of ICC and Dahlberg.
Results: Reliability coefficients between the two methods for maxillary intercanine, intermolar widths, and also arch depth were 0.98, 0.98, and 0.87, respectively. However, for mandible, they were 0.94, 0.77, and 0.92 respectively.
Conclusions: The average maximum absolute difference between the two methods was less than 0.5 mm, provided system was indeed clinically acceptable. The laser scanner and its software were clinically accurate in measuring arch depth and width in canine and molar areas.