A 3D model of your smile in five minutes

What the iTero scanner actually is

The iTero scanner is a slim handheld wand connected to a screen. As we glide it over your teeth, it captures thousands of images and stitches them, in real time, into a precise 3D model of your teeth and gums. No goopy impression trays, no gagging, no sitting motionless while putty sets. You watch your own smile build on the screen as the scan happens, which most patients find genuinely fun. The whole thing takes about five minutes, and if you need a breather at any point, we pause and pick right back up.

That model becomes the foundation of your entire Invisalign treatment. The scan travels digitally to Invisalign's planning software within minutes, no impressions shipped across the country, no waiting on a lab to pour a model.

The same-visit smile preview

Here's the part patients talk about afterward. The iTero includes what Invisalign calls an outcome simulator, which is a technical name for a simple idea: right after your scan, before you've committed to anything, we can show you a projected before-and-after of your own teeth. Not a stock photo of someone else's smile. Yours, straightened. It's a projection rather than a guarantee, and we say so plainly, but seeing your own teeth in their likely finished positions turns an abstract decision into a concrete one. For many people it's the moment "maybe someday" becomes "let's start."

Why scan precision matters for aligners

Every Invisalign aligner is manufactured from the digital model of your teeth. That means the aligners can only ever be as good as the model they're printed from. A putty impression can stretch as it comes out of your mouth, compress in shipping, or capture a margin poorly, and every one of those small errors gets baked into plastic that is supposed to move teeth fractions of a millimeter at a time. A digital scan skips all of it. The result is aligners that seat fully, grip where they're supposed to grip, and move teeth the way the plan says they will. Fewer fit problems up front means fewer course corrections later.

Tracking progress across treatment

The first scan isn't the last time the iTero earns its keep. Because your model is stored digitally, we can scan again at check-ins and compare your actual tooth positions against the digital plan, tooth by tooth. If everything is tracking, you get your next batch of aligners and go on with your day. If a tooth is lagging, we catch it in weeks instead of months, and if refinements are needed, a fresh scan orders them the same day. The whole story of how scans, aligners, and check-ins fit together is on our how Invisalign works page.

Part of a bigger planning system

A great scan is raw material; what you do with it is what determines the result. Here, your scan feeds into the planning protocols of a clear aligner program Dr. James Willis founded, backed by more than 1,000 cases completed across the Willis & Associates group. Dr. Kim and Dr. Azevedo stage your case within those protocols and deliver every visit here in Lynchburg. The scanner supplies the precision; the program supplies the judgment about how your teeth should actually move.

Beyond Invisalign

We use the same digital scanner for crowns, bridges, veneers, and night guards. Anything that used to require a putty impression can now be captured digitally. The lab gets a more accurate file, you spend less time in the chair, and the restoration that comes back almost always fits on the first try.

The scan and smile preview happen at your first consultation, so you'll know what treatment could look like before deciding anything. Curious what comes after the scan financially? Real numbers are on our Invisalign cost page.

Reviewed by Dr. Jihoon Kim, DDS, July 2026