Intraoral Cameras - Overview

MacPractice is compatible with most UVC (USB Video Class) compliant intraoral cameras.

UVC cameras can be used with the MacPractice native camera integration, while many more intraoral cameras can be used with MacPractice through the use of third-party software (such as Sopro Imaging Suite for Acteon/Sopix devices, or VideoGlide for Dr. Cam and some other proprietary cameras)

The following cameras have been confirmed to work with MacPractice:

• Acteon SOPRO Cameras (via the Acteon Sopro Imaging Suite Application)

• Dr. Cam (via VideoGlide)

VideoGlide is a third-party application which supports a wide variety of video devices, including many proprietary intraoral cameras. Information on setting up VideoGlide with MacPractice is available here

Using Intraoral Cameras with MacPractice

MacPractice's built-in image capture works with most USB cameras, and can be used for taking patient headshots as well as for taking dental photos. The MacPractice image capture offers a range of image adjustments such as contrast, saturation, exposure, etc. Full details of how to use the MacPractice image capture window are here

When using an intraoral camera with the MacPractice integrated image capture, there are two options for capturing photos, working in either the Attachments Ability or the Digital Radiography Ability

Attachments Ability

In Attachments Ability, select a patient with the patient selector above the sidebar. If you do not select a patient, you can still take pictures with your camera, but they will not be automatically assigned to a patient, and you will have to move them into a particular patient's attachments manually.

Click on the small Camera icon in the bottom left corner of MacPractice, or, alternatively, you can press Command+Shift+J or select "Video" from the "View" menu in the top menubar.

When the camera interface opens in the bottom left corner of MacPractice, it will automatically select a default camera. If you are using an iMac or a MacBook, this will most likely default to the FaceTime webcam. You can click the Gear icon to select your intraoral camera instead.

Once you have your intraoral camera selected, you can click on the icon with three vertical sliders on it to open the image adjustments menu, which will allow you to tweak the brightness, contrast, saturation, exposure, and other image settings. There is also a "pop-out" button which will open the camera preview in a larger window.

Then, you can click on the Camera icon again to take a picture, or you can press Command+Shift+J to take a picture, or, if your intraoral camera is configured to use a button on the device to capture an image you can do that, too. Some cameras might require the use of a third-party application known as USB Overdrive to use the camera's hardware button.

Digital Radiography Ability

The process for the Digital Radiography ability is similar to the Attachments Ability. Select a patient with the patient selector, then select a visit (or create a new one) and also a layout. You might want to create dedicated layouts for your intraoral images.

Once you have a visit and layout selected, click on the small Camera icon in the bottom left corner of MacPractice, or, alternatively, you can press Command+Shift+J or select "Video" from the "View" menu in the top menubar.

When the camera interface opens in the bottom left corner of MacPractice, it will automatically select a default camera. If you are using an iMac or a MacBook, this will most likely default to the FaceTime webcam. You can click the Gear icon to select your intraoral camera instead.

Once you have your intraoral camera selected, you can click on the icon with three vertical sliders on it to open the image adjustments menu, which will allow you to tweak the brightness, contrast, saturation, exposure, and other image settings. There is also a "pop-out" button which will open the camera preview in a larger window.

Then, you can click on the Camera icon again to take a picture, or you can press Command+Shift+J to take a picture, or, if your intraoral camera is configured to use a button on the device to capture an image you can do that, too. Some cameras might require the use of a third-party application known as USB Overdrive to use the camera's hardware button.

Photos taken with the intraoral camera in the DR Ability will automatically load into the wells of the layout you have selected in numerical order. You can also select a layout well manually by clicking on it before you take a picture, just like you can when taking X-Ray images. All of the other features of DR images are available for intraoral images taken in DR. They can be edited, rotated, post-processed, exported, etc.