Wear and sequencing
- Wear for the prescribed hours; the guide uses 22 hours a day as the target.
- Move to the next set on the clinician’s schedule and do not skip ahead.
- Soften a new aligner in warm water before seating when instructed.
For dentists and orthodontic teams
A direct-printed workflow for orthodontist-led care.
SmartAligners is a doctor-directed clear-aligner system built around Graphy Tera Harz Clear shape-memory resin. Every case is planned by an orthodontist, with production checkpointed for review after approval.
37°CRecovery evaluated at oral temperature
Attachment-lightPressure features may reduce attachments in suitable cases
Direct printedApproved appliance geometry, not a thermoformed sheet
3-5 daysLocal production target after approved cases
The technology advantage
Direct printing puts wall thickness and pressure regions back in the prescription.
Thermoforming inherits whatever a stretched sheet leaves behind. Direct printing does not. The evidence and limits sit further down this page.
Where the clinician decides
Three release points stay with you.
- Staging and geometryThe plan is approved as appliance geometry, not as a tray order.
- Wall thickness and pressure regionsThickness can be varied locally and a pressure region shaped or filled where prescribed.
- Release after inspectionFit and tracking can be reviewed before the next stages are committed.
Our plans
Three plan levels. The clinician confirms the fit.
Smart Essential, Smart Complete and Smart Advanced are our plan levels. The guide describes up to 10, 20 and 30 stages respectively, with package ranges of roughly 2-3, 4-6 and 7-10 months. Diagnosis, staging, refinements and compliance still determine the prescribed duration.
Essential up to 10 stages2-3 mo
Complete up to 20 stages4-6 mo
Advanced up to 30 stages7-10 mo
From the clinical guide
Scan, approve, then release a staged batch.
The treating clinician still owns diagnosis and review. Production starts only after approval.
Case workflow
Scan. Upload. Plan. Approve. Deliver.
- 01Scan
Digital dentition, checked for suitability.
- 02Upload
Scan sent with prescription and comments.
- 03Plan
A staged plan comes back for review.
- 04Approve
Production starts once you approve it.
- 05Deliver
Finished appliances reach the clinic.
Chairside delivery
Warm, place, press, settle.
- 01Warm
Soften the aligner in the approved warm-water protocol until temporarily flexible.
- 02Place
Guide the softened appliance straight onto the teeth.
- 03Press
Seat each tooth and seal the cheek- and tongue-side edges.
- 04Settle
Allow the appliance to cool and firm while checking fit and high spots.
Keep fit and hygiene on track
- Rinse before insertion and brush gently with a soft toothbrush.
- Brush teeth, gums and tongue after meals before replacing the appliance.
- Ask the clinic for guidance if a tray is lost, broken or symptoms feel severe.
Make review time count
- Checkpointed batches make fit and tracking visible before the next release.
- Planned pressure features may reduce auxiliaries in suitable movements.
- Fewer avoidable corrections can protect chair time without replacing clinical judgment.
Case portal
Submit a case, track it to delivery.
Upload the intraoral scan and prescription, review the orthodontist-led plan, approve it, and follow production checkpoints in one place.
1
Not Submitted
Started in clinic, awaiting scan submission.
1
Needing Your Review
Staged 3D plan waiting for clinical sign-off.
0
Submitted for Design
In orthodontic CAD staging with lab.
2
Delivered
Printed, QC inspected and dispatched.
Case SA-DEMO-004
Patient A · synthetic record
Needing Your Review
The staged 3D plan is ready. Production does not start until you approve it.
What's next: Review the staging in the treatment plan viewer, verify tooth movement velocities, then approve or return with clinical revisions.
Contact SmartAligners clinical support ↗
Files, Messages, and Batches are clickable case views. Open Files first to check what has arrived.
Submitted notes lock once a case is in production. After that, changes are requested as a revision rather than edited silently.
- Product Type
- SmartAligners Direct Complete
- Arch to Treat
- Upper and lower arch
- Treatment Plan
- Staged plan, 18 stages (0.20mm/step)
- Notes for the Lab
- Avoid attachments on upper laterals. Patient prefers slower staging.
Interactive 3D treatment plan viewer
Share 3D Plan with Patient · Disabled in this demo
Rotate, zoom and step through this synthetic case with the same 3D viewer used elsewhere on this site. It is a clearly illustrative demonstration, not the live per-patient staging simulator.
Status
Awaiting Doctor Approval
Files are grouped by clinical function rather than one general upload box. Each slot shows whether it has been received.
Facial Photos 2/3
- Full face, smiling (JPG)Uploaded
- Full face, not smiling (JPG)Uploaded
- Profile, not smilingNot uploaded
Intraoral Photos 4/4
- Upper occlusal (JPG)Uploaded
- Front view (JPG)Uploaded
- Lower occlusal (JPG)Uploaded
- Side occlusion (JPG)Uploaded
X-Rays 1/2
- Panoramic (DICOM)Uploaded
- CephalometricNot uploaded
Intraoral Scans 2/2
- Upper arch (STL · 14.2 MB)Uploaded
- Lower arch (STL · 13.8 MB)Uploaded
The portal keeps a case-scoped conversation with the lab and design team, plus a delivery history of system emails.
- Design Team (Orthodontist) Message Staging adjusted to avoid attachments on upper laterals per prescription. Review rotational velocity on tooth 12.
- System Notification Delivered Intraoral STL scans verified and registered. 0 mesh anomalies detected. Case SA-DEMO-004 ready for clinical approval.
Production is tracked as numbered batches, so staging can be released and checked in groups.
-
Batch 1 (Stages 1 to 6)Sent to printer
-
Batch 2 (Stages 7 to 12)Scheduled
Request a mobile scan
Dispatch mobile scanner · Disabled in this demo
SmartAligners can dispatch an intraoral scanner and certified clinical technician directly to your clinic in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, or Sharjah. In the portal this submits a dispatch request; here the form is shown as a capability and cannot be sent.
Patient namePatient A (Synthetic)
Clinic operatoryRoom 2 - Partner Clinic
Preferred dispatch windowTomorrow morning (09:00 - 12:00)
NotesFull dual arch scan with buccal bite
Evidence preview
What the material evidence actually says.
96.1%
Shape recovery at 60 minutes
TC-85 specimens returned toward their printed geometry in a 37 °C bath (N = 6). Recovery is a material property, not tooth movement.
4.65%
Tensile elastic limit
Strain at yield before permanent deformation in a 25 °C tensile test, against 3.92% for a PETG thermoforming sheet in the same test.
9
ISO 10993 tests on record
The biological evaluation battery for Tera Harz Clear, each with a laboratory report number you can request.
For your case discussion: these describe how the material behaves on a bench, not how a given tooth will move. They are useful for explaining how a printed appliance recovers toward its printed shape at mouth temperature. They are not a substitute for your own diagnosis, staging or review.
Material behaviour
Force that keeps working, not force that fades.
A thermoformed sheet is stretched to shape, so it starts to relax from the moment it is seated. Tera Harz is printed in its target geometry and keeps returning to it at mouth temperature. This is the measured difference.
96%
of the deformation recovered at 60 minutes, 37 °C
0%
recovery from PETG under the same conditions, it held its deformed shape
| Elapsed | Bending angle | Recovery |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 177.00 ± 1.44° | 0 |
| 10 s | 146.27 ± 3.92° | 17.36 ± 2.06% |
| 30 s | 107.23 ± 7.05° | 39.42 ± 3.90% |
| 1 min | 79.43 ± 6.45° | 55.12 ± 3.64% |
| 5 min | 31.53 ± 5.48° | 82.19 ± 3.09% |
| 10 min | 20.32 ± 5.49° | 88.52 ± 3.10% |
| 60 min | 6.90 ± 2.68° | 96.11 ± 1.50% |
Recovery ratio θinitial − θt θinitial × 100
Why activation at body temperature matters
The useful distinction is not that the polymer can change shape. It is that recovery continues in the temperature range where the aligner is actually worn.
- Warm water briefly increases flexibility, which reduces the effort needed to seat a tight tray.
- Recovery toward the printed geometry is what generates the corrective action, rather than residual stress in a stretched sheet.
- Repeated-cycle testing supports recovery as a material property, not a one-time event.
- Stage timing and warm-water instructions stay under your control.
Safety testing
Nine tests, and what each one returned.
Tera Harz Clear, the material SmartAligners are printed from, was submitted against the ISO 10993 battery for biological evaluation of medical devices. Laboratory report numbers are listed so a clinician can request the underlying certificates.
| Number | Test | Standard | Result | Report no. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cytotoxicity Elution method | ISO 10993-5 | Non-cytotoxic to L-929 mouse fibroblast cells | BIO-GNT 1384 |
| 2 | Sensitization GPMT | ISO 10993-10 | Non-sensitizer to guinea pig skin | BIO-ATX 3190 |
| 3 | Irritation Acute oral mucosa | ISO 10993-10 | Oral mucosal irritation index concluded as zero | BIO-ATX 3191 |
| 4 | Intracutaneous reactivity Polar and non-polar extracts | ISO 10993-10 | Non-irritant to rabbit skin | BIO-ATX 3192 |
| 5 | Acute systemic toxicity IV and intraperitoneal, 50 mL/kg | ISO 10993-11 | No systemic toxicity observed | BIO-ATX 3193 |
| 6 | Subacute systemic toxicity Repeated administration | ISO 10993-11 | No gross or microscopic changes | BIO-CTX-606 |
| 7 | Subchronic systemic toxicity Repeated administration | ISO 10993-11 | No gross or microscopic changes | BIO-CTX 362 |
| 8 | Genotoxicity Bacterial reverse mutation | ISO 10993-3 | Non-mutagenic at 100% extract concentration | BIO-GNT 1385 |
| 9 | Genotoxicity In vitro chromosomal aberration | ISO 10993-3 | Non-clastogenic with and without metabolic activation | BIO-GNT 1386 |
Biocompatibility describes how the material behaves in contact with tissue. It is not a measure of treatment effectiveness, and it is not a prediction of any individual outcome. Source: Graphy shape-memory aligner science summary, safety section.
Performance and literature
Evidence at three levels: fit, material stability and clinical use.
Fit
Dimensional accuracy
3D scan analysis reports greater trueness and precision for direct-printed aligners than the thermoformed comparison. A printed aligner is measured against the file it came from; a thermoformed one is measured against a sheet that was stretched over a model.
Material
Behaviour over 14 days
After 14 days in 37 °C water, the printed resins delivered 4.04 to 7.24 N at 1% strain, against 26.26 to 32.91 N for thermoformed sheets in the same test (Oyonarte et al., Scientific Reports 2026).
Clinical
Published case reports
Shape-memory aligner cases are published in the peer-reviewed literature, including Schupp et al. in the Journal of Aligner Orthodontics. Protocols and outcomes vary by case; the papers are linked below rather than summarised into a claim.
Primary sources and evidence context
Peer-reviewed · laboratory studyThermo-mechanical properties of 3D printed photocurable shape memory resin for clear aligners2022
- Authors
- Lee SY, Kim H, Kim HJ, et al.
- Published in
- Scientific Reports 12:6246
- What it supports here
- Source of every shape-recovery and elastic-range figure on this site, including the 96.1% recovery at 60 minutes and the 4.65% vs 3.92% elastic limits.
- Read the original
- doi:10.1038/s41598-022-09831-4
Peer-reviewed · in-vitro studyForces and moments generated by 3D direct printed clear aligners of varying labial and lingual thicknesses during lingual movement of a maxillary central incisor2023
- Authors
- Grant J, Foley P, Bankhead B, et al.
- Published in
- Progress in Orthodontics 24:23 (2023)
- What it supports here
- Supports the statement that selectively changing printed thickness changes the measured force system. It is an in-vitro measurement on one tooth, not a treatment outcome.
- Read the original
- PubMed 37423974
Peer-reviewed · critical reviewClinically Relevant Properties of 3D Printable Materials for Intraoral Use in Orthodontics: A Critical Review of the Literature2023
- Authors
- Goracci C, Juloski J, D'Amico C, et al.
- Published in
- Materials 16(6):2166 (2023)
- What it supports here
- The reason this site describes the clinical evidence base as developing rather than settled. Cited wherever a direct-print claim is qualified.
- Read the original
- PubMed 36984045
Manufacturer informationGraphy: Shape Memory Aligner Workflow2026
- Authors
- Graphy
- Published in
- Manufacturer workflow documentation
- What it supports here
- Source of the manufacturing route steps and the RPA/CPR pressure-region comparison. Manufacturer material, not independent evidence.
- Read the original
- graphysma.com/sma-workflow
Laboratory test batteryISO 10993 biological evaluation of Tera Harz Clear (nine tests)Undated
- Authors
- Graphy / contract laboratories
- Published in
- Report numbers BIO-GNT 1384 to 1386, BIO-ATX 3190 to 3193, BIO-CTX 362 / 606
- What it supports here
- Supports the ISO 10993 biocompatibility statements on this site. Biocompatibility describes tissue contact only. It is not evidence of treatment effectiveness.
From approved digital plan to inspected appliance.
Direct printing removes model printing, block-out, thermoforming and border trimming from the conventional workflow. It does not remove the need for disciplined post-processing and clinical QC.
-
01
Clinical approval
Scan, diagnosis, staging and appliance design reviewed by the treating clinician.
-
02
Direct printing
Aligners printed from the approved digital appliance geometry.
-
03
Wash and cure
Validated post-processing controls polymerization and finished material behaviour.
-
04
Finish and inspect
Supports, edges, clarity, fit and batch records checked before release.
Tracking
What tracking looks like in the occlusal view.
Upper and lower arch photographs from one treated case, taken before treatment and at the end of the approved plan.
Upper arch
Lower arch
Local production partner
D4 Dental Lab, Dubai
Office 303, Ahli House C, Al Nahda 2, Dubai. Monday-Saturday, 9:00 AM-6:00 PM.
SmartAligners coordinates local production through D4 after clinician approval of the digital plan. The laboratory workflow is designed around rapid UAE production targets for eligible cases, with staged 4-6 aligner batches available for progress checks when requested by the clinician.
More than a Lab. A partner in your smile.
SmartAligners main contact WhatsApp +971 52 671 1185 [email protected]
Go deeper
The source material, and the product page.
Every chart above is rebuilt from Graphy's characterisation data. If you would rather read the original figures, they are reproduced in full with the provenance stated.
- Ten figuresBiocompatibility, shape memory, creep, accuracy and pressure regions
- Provenance statedReproduced from Graphy's summary, with what is deliberately excluded and why
- Papers linkedPublisher records rather than reproduced article pages
For dental professionals
Bring SmartAligners into your clinic.
Tell us about your clinic, team and interest in onboarding, clinical training or production. This partnership channel is separate from patient provider enquiries.
[email protected]Partnership enquiry received
The SmartAligners clinical team will reply using the contact details provided.