Open Dental Forum

I am experimenting OD for my scratch startup and very much like it. I plan to buy a USB camera, perhaps, a low-cost camera from eBay. Do you have any suggestions for the brand/model that integrates with OD.

Thanks
DrC

I have purchased 3 of the low cost cameras. ( I think I paid around $39.00). You cannot take pictures directly into OD unless you upgrade the twain driver.(search the forum for the website of the twain driver.) You can take the software that comes with the camera, copy the picture and paste it into OD. Just a little bit cumbersome but it gets you started. The cameras are thick so shot of 2nd and 3rd molars are difficult. They have to be shot from the vestibule. Besides that it takes good pictures for emailing and showing to the patient. I thinks its good for a start or good to have if you're not using a camera a lot. JMO

I agree. I would never buy those 600+ camera's after using the 1.3 megapixel fro ebay. I bought two of them.

At first I would simply show the patient the broken tooth. press the button to capture the image and then just press the print screen button on the keyboard.

Now with apteryx I can easily use this cheap camera and no special drivers to quickly capture images.

Is this the camera you are talking about:

Aiptek Mini PenCam 1.3 Digital Camera

Do a search on ebay for dental camera. Get the USB model, not the RCA. UsB goes directly to computer. RCA you have to get a video card or USB adapter ($49.00)to accept the images.

Thank you much for your response. Will check out the 1.3MP camera.

regards
DrC

Anthony J Turner wrote:Do a search on ebay for dental camera. Get the USB model, not the RCA. UsB goes directly to computer. RCA you have to get a video card or USB adapter ($49.00)to accept the images.

I got 3 of the cheap-o IOCs on ebay a couple weeks ago. Shipping was pretty quick from China. The cameras work reasonably well, though sometimes it is difficult to get far away enough to be in focus. But they were super cheap--1.3mp for $70. Best $210 I've ever spent! I'm using XDR and the images are easily captured.
Hank

Hmm. I guess I can't argue with that. I'm used to thinking of intraoral cameras as a $10,000 money pit. I guess it's time to order some.

Yes I have them as well. definitely worth the 100 bucks I spent on ebay. I have 2 of these. I've sold many crowns with this thing. integrates into apteryx pretty well.

I also have one of the 1.3mp cameras from ebay. It has 2 capture buttons on it. With your xdr or apertyx software, are you capturing the pictures with the camera capture button, or software button?

Thanks, Dr. Neelley

in my case it works better using apteryx's software capture button. so I have the assistant click the button for me.

There is another driver that will allow me to capture via the button, but I loose other funtionality such as select the tooth number and multiple capture imports.

I wonder if it is possible for Open Dental to build in support for capturing images, attached to teeth numbers, with the on board hardware capture button???

I noticed that when I first plugged in my new camera to the USB port, that windows xp found a program and driver, from HP, that will operate and give basic functionality to the USB camera. I am not a programmer.

Is it possible to integrate this program into Open Dental, a bridge????

Dr. Neelley

Just a question how do you clean these camera after one patient to another ?

Regarding cleaning the camera:

I wrap the camera in Saranwrap as a barrier. Then afterward I unwrap and simply wipe it down with a caviwipe.

Nice Work!

The 'inexpensive' intra oral cameras sound great.
But could use a bit more detailed help here for us camera novices.

I went to eBay and found a few camera's from China.
Is there a consensus on the best one?

I'd like to be able to configure the camera for direct imput into the patient's image folder in OD.

Is this camera sequence possible?
Open the patent's image module
click on the driver for this camera..
(like we do to activate scanning)..
This would 'Capture' the image
and then just select the image/photo folder we want to save it to.

I have a feeling if the camera doesn't have a twain driver we need to add one? or is that not possible?
If it is, how do we find and install it?
Or do we have to use Apteryx? and then import to OD images...
Sounds cumbersome at best.

(Eventually, as said earlier, this would be great if done directly from the chart module with "capture/view" icons above each tooth graphic)

Thanks all.

Not that I'm aware of yet. For the time being, what we did was buy an el cheapo Kodak Easy Share CX7330. It's 3.1 megapixel, so all we're using it for is capturing full face photos to go in the patient picture section of the Family File (and of course the bubble pop up).

You can buy an optional dock for this camera (which we have not tried yet), but we use the supplied USB connector. We simply take the photo, plug the USB connector back in to the camera, and go to Images > Import, and then navigate to the Camera and double click. This will show all the images in the camera, so we just choose the one we want and click Open and then follow the dialog popup to place the image in the Patient Pictures Folder.

Not elegant to be sure, but the front desk staff picked up on it quickly, and it works quite smoothly enough for the time being.

Does the new Twain driver support capturing from a camera yet please?

hankwillisdds wrote:Regarding cleaning the camera:

I wrap the camera in Saranwrap as a barrier. Then afterward I unwrap and simply wipe it down with a caviwipe.

Were those pictures taken with one of the cheap usb intra oral camera's? If so, I have got to get me a few of those!

Yep, bought three of the solarcams on ebay. $70 each. One of them stopped working after about 2 months, but its still the best money I've spent lately! I'd buy again.