3shape & hardware, going technical

[Jussi Roivanen]

hey,

im new into 3shape but the lab which i work at, is planning to expand its operations and some new pc hardware is required. I stumbled on a "official" 3shape supported systems list but it is.. frankly useless. That is because lack of variety in hardware specs. Sure, there is Intel i7 & Nvidia cards listed and that hardware is more or less something you can get from any computer parts dealer, for home use.

Naturally tried to contact 3shape nordic sales/finnish reseller and asked about questions thee, but i have not got any reply.

Anyway, since we talk about CAD/CAM I was thinking about Intel Xeons, ECC memory (error correcting, possibly buffered),Nvidia Quadro/ Ati FirePro graphics cards... I know that in theory there should not be any problems, but in my experience the practice and theory does not always meet. Do you guys have experience on running 3shape designer program on "heavier" type of hardware.

I noticed also, that 3shape scanner/manager software (and dongle service) can be installed as "network" install (so that you could use designer part on different workstations). I would appreciate some small description about how it is done, experiences, tips and possible issues which i might encounter.

Then there is some "techical" questions about 3shape communicate cloud service. But that issue can only be answered by 3shape developer/tester/software designer..

-- Jussi, a newbie from Finland.

 

[JohnWilson]

Hi Jussi and welcome to the site.

I agree 3shape is vague on what works best. If you are doing mostly average restorations the baseline will work terrific with no issues. When we started to do full mouth implant restorations they basic system with constantly give me errors.

I went crazy on my next build and most definitely went over the top with 64 gigs of ram dual processors and a quadro card, ss drives running raid. This workstation is set up as a client on our network and the server/scan station allows us to use one dongle. We are adding a new D2000 to our lab and will be changing the configuration a bit with more design seats to allow better production.

While I am certain that 3shape is not taking advantage of all my expensive hardware I can say the system is very stable and the big cases render much faster.

3shape communicate works amazing with Trios cases, its fast, efficient and is my favorite part of the morning. I log on to my iPhone ap and can see all the cases waiting for me as I drive into work.

As the new year stretches on I am sincerely interested in where 3shape will go to next with their new 2015 version, I here possibly lab day west???

 

[BobCDT]

send an email to [email protected] and we will help you out.

 

[Sevan P]

An Alieaware SLI PC ran the new trios boost scan at chicago last year, think like a gamer when building a PC, i7 6th gen quad is more then enough but hex core would be seriously fast. 16GB + ram and if your gonna run a single GPU Nvidia 980Ti right now or SLI and run two of them.

Off the shelf a Dell XPS 8900 with 16GB of ram will do as well.

3Shape is bad on the communication end of what works best, they left that up to the retailers and end users to figure out.

 

[Jussi Roivanen]

We have some HP Elite 8300 "pizza boxes" (16gb, nvidia gt720, i7) atm and 3shape runs basic stuff quite nicely but there is few hiccups on more complex things every now and then though. I was thinking also going "over the top" with new rig (definately Xeon but possibly dual xeon e5-2620v3, 32-64gb mem, quadro, 2 SSDs mirrored). Hardwarewise gaming things are good enough to satisfy "the need of computing speed". But as for prodcution environment my guidelines are stability, fault tolerance and easy/fast recovery. Computing speed is appreciated but that is something we "pay extra", if that is wanted.
I looked into 3shape network install a bit and i understand that one has to set up a server (scan station) which is the machine that handles orders (it must run ms sql server since order form data is saved on sql database). And it also acts as dongle service. That is the default. However to me "bundling" these functions is not best possible option. I think it might be possible to configure 3shape dental manager a bit differently.. I am looking to set up separate sql/storage server (with extremely fault tolerant raid 10 or 50 setup) and then configure scan station to put order data to that server and also put scan data to network drive. I have found a configuration option where sql database can be determined and also i found where "scan data" and manufacturing directories are set. I dont have problems with understanding configuration options.. but the testing takes time. I dont want embark on that route without asking if someone knows that such production enviroment is downright ****ty or if it cannot be done in first place! So thoughts and experiences for that are highly appreciated. Step-by-step instructions.. perhaps there is time for them later
-- Jussi, Finland

 

[kristian]

Terve,

3Shape is known to have some issues with Quadros, I'd stick with GeForce.

The bottlenecks in the current system and it's limited processor core usage tend to negate any gains from a high end system. There's very little practical difference running 3Shape with a $900 i5/16Gb/GTX960 versus $6000 12-core-Xeon/32Gb/GTX980Ti.

That might change in the future, but these are the limitations of the current versions.

In a standalone installation or the server end of a client/server setup you'll also want SSDs. That's about it.

 

[Jussi Roivanen]

Thanks Kristian. It is good to know about the bottlenecks and issues with Quadros. For our acute need i'll check i7, but also E3-12xx series Xeon (for ECC mem) + GeForce combinations.

 

[Sevan P]

Terve,

3Shape is known to have some issues with Quadros, I'd stick with GeForce.

The bottlenecks in the current system and it's limited processor core usage tend to negate any gains from a high end system. There's very little practical difference running 3Shape with a $900 i5/16Gb/GTX960 versus $6000 12-core-Xeon/32Gb/GTX980Ti.

That might change in the future, but these are the limitations of the current versions.

In a standalone installation or the server end of a client/server setup you'll also want SSDs. That's about it.

Agree SSD as the main OS hardrive is the way to go, 10 sec PC start up reads and writes soo much faster the a standard HDD @ 7200rpm

 

[sirmorty]

I wouldn't bother going all out on a pc, like people have said put a SSD in and you should be fine. You are just wasting $$$ until something changes with 3shape.

And just my experience, stick with Nvidia. I have a pc that uses an ATI card and the only way I could get the installation of the 3shape software to works was to disable the card.
After it was installed, I enabled it and everything worked fine. Kind of a headache to figure out.

Also paragraphs Jussi, that all one line stuff is hard to read.

 

[Jussi Roivanen]

Sorry about paragraphs! I grabbed my message with "copy&paste" and forgot to check them. newbie mistake!

 

[Sevan P]

I found some great deals an amazon dell xps and lenovo. I7 16gb and nvidia 745 or higher.

 

[Jussi Roivanen]

Ok. Here is the "base" of the rig. Still thinking weather to go with Xeon or i7... but as saying goes: "someone likes daughter, someone likes mother but some might say that either of them is good" ;D

GFX: Nvidia GTX960
CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1270/1275-v3 OR Intel i7-5820K
Mem: 32gb DDR4 (ECC for xeon, regular fo i7)
SSD: Samsung 950 pro M.2 NVMe, 256gb

This is still quite high-end thing.. but it costs about 1000 euros less than what Dual Xeon setup would be. haha.

 

[Sevan P]

Not bad, but a 256gb SSD is pretty small, but if your only going to install 3shape you should be fine, you will need at least a 1TB or 2TB HDD as a storage for all you scanned cases. Also on the 960 try to get the 4gb, the more ram on the gpu the better you will be.

Here is a link on the E3-1275 vs i7
http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Xeon-E3-1275-V2-vs-Intel-Core-i7-5820K/m4507vs2579

If i were you I would go with the i7.

 

[Jussi Roivanen]

Yep, that i7 has almost double cache (compared to Xeon, which makes a difference on cpu intensive work) and 2 more cores.. it will be good enough even if 3shape starts to "enjoy" more cores in the future. And when that happens some of the oldest workstations might need replacement. haha.

And yes, 4gb version of gtx960 is on my list. I thought about the larger SSD, but there is a difference of 200 euros on 512gb vs. 256gb version. 256gb is enough since we use older workstation as scan station (it has 1tb hdd) for time being. Im planning to set up highly fault tolerant database/storage server in few months.

thanks to all for ze help and thoughts

 

[kristian]

For processor benchmarks, compare single core performance. i7 wins there, if not by much. It uses 4 cores, but not in a meaningful way.

 

[Jaemin Lee]

Last year, I bought d2000 and it came with HP Z230 workstation pc.
The spec looked not so bad at that time, i7 4790, gtx960, 16gb ram, 1tb hdd.
However as the case went bigger, the more errors were occured while designing.
So I added more ram to it, and it worked much better but still unstable.
As I am a man of competitive spirit, I built my own design pc.
I7 6700k, 32gb ram, gtx 980, ssd 512 gb sata3, I put best options as far as I could.
And it went very smoothly without errors.
After the first set up of PC, I upgraded 2 fearures.
One was adding nvme M.2 ssd to mainboard and the second was to upgrade graphic card from 980 to Titan x.

The result was not that good considering the price.
To cut it short, I am prioritizing parts of design PC from my experience.

1. CPU at least i7 haswell is recommended if you want to design prosthesis on both sides of the jaw.
But i7 skylake is better because the mainboard chipset accepts 16gb ram stick, so it can expnd the ram capacity to 64gb with four stack of rams.
2. RAM
The more the better, with enough ram capacity, Dental System can store lots of information on the ram.
3.SSD
This is critical.
4. Graphic card
As dental system is run on FHD resolution, u dont need to go over 970 or 980.
Even Titanx did not show much difference.
In my opinion, 980ti or Titan should go with 4k monitors to show differences bu u dont need to upgrade the monitors to operate Dental System.
5. Separated USB 3.1 slot connected with pci express slot
3Shape scanners must not share the same usb port with other things, so u need to put the additional usb slots.

I hope this would be helpful for u. And one more, nvme and sata did not show much difference because the up to date sata supports 6gb/sec read speed.

 

[Sevan P]

Last year, I bought d2000 and it came with HP Z230 workstation pc.
The spec looked not so bad at that time, i7 4790, gtx960, 16gb ram, 1tb hdd.
However as the case went bigger, the more errors were occured while designing.
So I added more ram to it, and it worked much better but still unstable.
As I am a man of competitive spirit, I built my own design pc.
I7 6700k, 32gb ram, gtx 980, ssd 512 gb sata3, I put best options as far as I could.
And it went very smoothly without errors.
After the first set up of PC, I upgraded 2 fearures.
One was adding nvme M.2 ssd to mainboard and the second was to upgrade graphic card from 980 to Titan x.

The result was not that good considering the price.
To cut it short, I am prioritizing parts of design PC from my experience.

1. CPU at least i7 haswell is recommended if you want to design prosthesis on both sides of the jaw.
But i7 skylake is better because the mainboard chipset accepts 16gb ram stick, so it can expnd the ram capacity to 64gb with four stack of rams.
2. RAM
The more the better, with enough ram capacity, Dental System can store lots of information on the ram.
3.SSD
This is critical.
4. Graphic card
As dental system is run on FHD resolution, u dont need to go over 970 or 980.
Even Titanx did not show much difference.
In my opinion, 980ti or Titan should go with 4k monitors to show differences bu u dont need to upgrade the monitors to operate Dental System.
5. Separated USB 3.1 slot connected with pci express slot
3Shape scanners must not share the same usb port with other things, so u need to put the additional usb slots.

I hope this would be helpful for u. And one more, nvme and sata did not show much difference because the up to date sata supports 6gb/sec read speed.

Keep in mind the scanner needs to be on a usb 2 a usb 3 will fry the scanners board. But keep it seperate for sure.

 

[2thm8kr]

Keep in mind the scanner needs to be on a usb 2 a usb 3 will fry the scanners board. But keep it seperate for sure.

How did you learn that?

 

[zero_zero]

Keep in mind the scanner needs to be on a usb 2 a usb 3 will fry the scanners board. But keep it seperate for sure.

USB 3 is backwards compatible with USB 2, it shouldn't cause any issues...unless some danish guy had hard time designing a compatible hardware...

 

[Jussi Roivanen]

USB port types (1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.1) should have same power delivery (20V, 5A),so usb3 port should not fry usb2 device. USB port may have been acting up. Eg. my home computer drops dead if i move (or disconnect) mouse/keyboard. That kind of stuff may have caused havoc on scanner.

And about the USBs. Techincally speaking USB ports in computer are usually designed so that 3, maybe 4 ports are connected to a "hub". Hub is something that handles data traffic and "routes" data from those usb-ports to cpu (actually its a bit more complicated, involves lanes and various controller chips, but no need to explain it further). There are so called "Slow USB" devices and High-speed USB devices (no matter what USB revision 2.0, 3.0 3.1 they are). To my understanding Slow USB devices are like normal mouse and keyboard (and perhaps some other things as well) which send commands and only bits data with those commands, but they do not send constant data stream. High-speed ones send data stream (and commands) so you can imagine that usb sticks, scanners, external hdds, etc. being suchs.

Connecting high-speed USB device to same "hub" with slow speed devices can cause problems. 3shape scanner software gives warning about having "slow" devices connected with scanner. I have e3DConnexxion Spacenavigator (a one form of mouse, which seems to be highspeed device),Wacom Cintiq 13hd touch, and 3shape Scanner and a USB stick on same "hub". They coexist happily and separate cards are not needed. if i put scanner to same "line of ports" with mouse/keyboard (eg. connect scanner to same hub with mouse/keyb),scanner software gives warnings.

Anyway.. Someone (not me) has crazy idea to have Wacom Cintiq 27QHD Touch with this rig.. but i still think gtx960 should be enough.