Digital technologies have revolutionized dental research, education, and practice. They have improved the speed and/or quality of practices in several areas such as: diagnostic and treatment planning in various disciplines including 2D or 3D radiography/photography methods and programs used for maxillofacial surgery, implant dentistry, orthodontics, prosthodontics, restorative dentistry, esthetic dentistry, oral pathology, etc., as well as other services such as virtual reality (VR) for anxiety reduction, computer-assisted manufacturing systems (such as CEREC), digital impressions, smart expert systems facilitating treatment planning, software for mechanical simulation of force distributions through oral tissues or dental biomaterials (e.g., finite element method [FEM]), software for teaching dentistry materials (such as 3D anatomy learning software or 3D surgical procedures simulation programs), digital archiving of patient records and convenient/rapid sharing of them over the internet, digital bibliographic assistance in dental research, or other utilities.

This special issue welcomes original research, clinical studies as well as review articles concerning the efficacy or quality of advanced digital methods and devices used in dental research, practice, or education (in general dentistry or any of its specialties). Also dentistry-related studies carried out mainly using progressive digital technologies and devices (and not necessarily researching them) would be of interest.

Potential topics include but are not limited to the following:

• Digital image processing / machine vision software used in dentistry (e.g., automatic landmark identification on cephalographs or photographs, automatic histomorphometry, caries detection, etc.)
• 3D diagnostic and treatment planning software programs (e.g., CBCT reconstruction and analysis for evaluation of anomalies, implant/orthognathic surgeries, etc.)
• 2D diagnostic and treatment planning software programs (e.g., cephalometric and cast analysis programs, photographic profile assessments, etc.)
• Digital 3D radiography
• Novel technologies or devices in 2D digital radiography
• Digital 3D photography
• New features in 2D digital photography (e.g., new devices for extra- or intra-oral imaging, factors associated with image quality, etc.)
• Digital impressions
• Computer-assisted designing and manufacturing (e.g., CEREC)
• Finite element analysis/method (FEA/FEM)
• Virtual reality (VR)
• Expert systems for computer-assisted diagnosis and treatment planning
• Any other fresh digital procedures, technologies, or devices of potential use in dentistry or dental research / education