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Run a smile simulation with Cympha DSD

Cympha DSD turns one smile photo into an AI-guided before-and-after in the browser, for case acceptance at the chair and for showing the lab your intent in the dental case.

The Digital Smile Design (DSD) workspace in Cympha Studio turns a single 2D photo into an AI-guided before/after the patient sees on their own image. The whole thing runs in the browser — no install, no CAD seat, no upload of the patient photo.

Before you start

  • One smile photo. Choose a clear, level, frontal, lip-retracted intraoral photo — the design quality follows the photo.
  • Cympha Studio open at studio.cympha.com. No sign-in is needed to design — the only DSD action that asks you to sign in is Download PNG at the end.

Communication tool, not lab CAD. A single-photo DSD is for chair-side case acceptance and for showing the lab your intent. It has no occlusion, no 3D, no mm-accurate manufacturing geometry — a licensed clinician must review every result before any clinical use.

Open the workspace

Two ways in:

  • Workspace switcher at the top of Studio → pick Digital Smile Design.
  • Perform DSD button on any photo in the gallery / image viewer — seeds that image straight into Step 1.

The 5-step wizard

Each step has one primary action and an optional toolset. The order is fixed; you can revisit earlier steps freely.

Step 1 — Photo

Load the image. Inline sliders for brightness, contrast, and rotation; a crop tool when the framing isn't right.

Step 2 — Detect

Click the primary action. Studio runs an in-browser AI pass to find every tooth and segment it cleanly, then analyses the result: arch split (upper / lower), per-tooth labels (central / lateral / canine / premolar / molar), midline, smile arc, and a report card with central width / height, incisal cant, midline offset, and lateral-to-central ratio.

In-place fix when a number is off: the Tooth number dropdown overrides any individual tooth's number.

Step 3 — Frame

The structural design surface. Four kinds of handles control the shape:

  • The midline (a vertical reference x).
  • Contact lines between anterior teeth — moving them changes tooth widths.
  • The incisal-edge (smile-line) curve — the upper arc shape.
  • The gingival (gum-margin) curve.

What's available:

  • Auto-propose curves generates smooth, symmetric curves.
  • Golden widths rebuilds the anterior contacts to central : lateral : canine = 1 : 0.618 : 0.382.

The report card updates live as you design.

Step 4 — Refine

Local, per-tooth cosmetic touch-ups that don't cascade to neighbours:

  • Drag a boundary handle to reshape a contour (neighbour points follow with smooth falloff).
  • Drag inside a crown to move the whole tooth.
  • Rotate with the dial handle.

Use Refine for the final polish after the Frame step sets the structural intent.

Step 5 — Generate

The render. Exactly two texture modes:

  • Template (AI crown) — stamp ideal-smile crowns from the built-in template library.
  • Preserve (own texture) — warp the patient's own enamel so the result looks like their teeth, just in the new shape.

Then:

  • Shade and whitening sliders apply instantly without re-designing, so the sliders are live.
  • The before / after compare slider is the case-acceptance tool: drag across the image while you talk the patient through the change.
  • Download PNG to share the result or attach it to the case. This is the one point in DSD where Studio asks you to sign in.

Tips

  • Take the photo through retractors. A clean, level, retracted frontal shot gives the cleanest arch separation and the most accurate report card — the design quality follows the photo.
  • Trust the AI for detection, override for numbering. The model is good at finding teeth; on imperfect shots use the Tooth number dropdown to correct any label.
  • Frame first, Refine last. Set the design intent in Frame (cascading edits) before you touch Refine (no cascade) — otherwise your per-tooth touch-ups get re-flowed by the next Frame edit.

Privacy

Detection, analysis, and rendering all run on the loaded photo inside your browser tab — nothing about the patient's image leaves the device. Save-to-case is an explicit action and only uploads when you click it.

Related guides

  • Plan an orthodontic case in Studio
  • Studio mesh tools — when to use which
  • Cympha Studio essentials
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