Background and objectives: The purpose is to present and validate a new and innovative ‘surface to Cone-beam CT (CBCT)’ registration method to obtain a 3D virtual augmented model (AUM) of the patient’s face appropriate for orthognathic surgery planning.

Methods: In order to validate this new method, the patient AUM obtained by the ‘triple scan’ procedure was taken as the ‘gold standard’. The CBCT scans N°1 (patient scanned vertically with a wax bite wafer in place) and CBCT scans N°3 (high-resolution scan of the Triple Tray ^® AlgiNotTM all-in-one impression) of 30 patients were all registered based on the new ‘Surface to Image (STI)’ registration algorithm.

Results: The mean distance between ‘registered impression scan N°1’ and ‘registered impression scan N°3’ was between 0.3 and 0.4 mm with a 95% confidence interval. The voxel size of the images was 0.4 mm in all cases.

Conclusions: The results of this study showed that ‘surface to CBCT’ registration augmented the 3-D virtual digital patient model with detailed occlusal and intercuspidation data in a highly accurate and robust way. The method eliminates the second patient scan of the ‘triple scan protocol’.

Keywords: CBCT; virtual; orthognathic surgery