Abstract: Described herein is a mold in the shape of a dental arch produced by additive manufacturing from a polymerizable resin. The mold includes: an upper portion configured in the shape of a set of teeth; an intermediate portion having a hollow cavity formed therein; a planar base surface portion, the hollow cavity extending through the base surface portion; and a plurality of drain channels extending from the hollow cavity upward through the upper portion, the drain channels configured for draining of residual polymerizable resin from the hollow cavity.

Abstract: A method of making a plurality of polymer dental appliances, including the steps of: (a) additively manufacturing a plurality of hollow molds from a polymerizable resin, each mold having an external surface portion configured in the shape of a dental arch and a bottom portion having a hollow cavity therein, and with the additively manufacturing step carried out with the plurality of hollow molds formed on a build platform; (b) centrifugally separating residual resin from both the external surface portion and the bottom portion (including the hollow cavity) of each mold; (c) further curing, concurrently or sequentially, the external surface portion and the bottom portion of each mold with ultraviolet light; then (d) thermoforming a thermoplastic polymer sheet on each hollow mold external surface portion to produce the plurality of polymer dental appliances; and (e) separating the plurality of polymer dental appliances from the plurality of hollow molds.

Abstract: A centrifugal separator for separating residual resin from additively manufactured objects, the objects carried on a build surface of a build platform on which the objects were additively manufactured. The separator includes: an outer vessel; a rotor in the vessel, the rotor defining a center axis of rotation; a drive assembly operatively associated with the rotor; and a plurality of build platform mount assemblies operatively associated with the rotor, each mount assembly configured to receive one of the build platforms in (i) a first orientation in which the build surfaces face toward the axis of rotation, and (ii) a second orientation in which the build surfaces face away from the axis of rotation.

Abstract: Surface texturing of objects during additive manufacturing, including systems and methods thereof. For example, a method of surface texturing a three-dimensional (3D) object during additive manufacturing of the object: (a) irradiating a resin segment with patterned light at a build plane to polymerize said resin and grow said 3D object, then (b) advancing said object away from said build plane to bring a new segment of said resin in contact with said growing 3D object and establish a new build plane, and then repeating steps (a) through (b) until said 3D object is formed. For resin segments that correspond to portions of said 3D object to which surface texture is applied, said irradiating step is carried out by sequentially irradiating each resin segment with: (i) a first sub-exposure pattern and (ii) a second sub-exposure pattern, one of which is modified to include a texture pattern on a surface thereof.