Plan Before You Cut
You open a flap and hope you removed enough bone. You go flapless and hope it doesn't relapse. You look at a gummy smile, sense it's "too much gum," and either refer it out — or improvise and wait to see how it heals.
Here's the part nobody says out loud: the moment you're "soaking wet, hoping this turns out" is the moment you skipped a measurement.
This course removes the guessing. You'll read a cross-section, find three landmarks, and let the decision make itself.
Virtual gingivectomy
Learn the tricks for
Creating a virtual patient
Visualizing the outcomes of CL
Flap vs. flapless decision-making
Creating a stunning HD render of the final outcome
this is for you if:
You currently refer crown-lengthening cases out — and watch the case (and the patient) walk to someone else.
You do flaps "to be safe" because you can't predict the flapless result.
Your veneers come out bulky at the cervical, and you blame biologic width when the real cause was bone you never reduced.
You design on top of the gums, then re-do the design after the cut because the tooth finished somewhere else.
It's not for you if:
You're looking for a broad, general smile-design course. This is narrow and deliberate: crown lengthening, planning, and the decision.
Seeing beyond the tissue
Three measurements decide everything:
Three measurements decide everything:
Free gingival margin — what the eye sees today.
CEJ — the maximum you can expose while staying on enamel.
Bone level & thickness — sets biologic width and the flap-vs-flapless call.
Two distances between them give you the answer:
FGM → CEJ = your cutting zone. Hard rule: keep ≥ 2 mm of keratinized tissue after the cut. No 2 mm, no cut.
FGM → bone = individual biologic width. Bone near the CEJ → plan ostectomy to re-create ~3 mm.
After this course
Create a 3D patient avatar in smilecloud biometrics software for easier decision-making
Read a CBCT cross-section and instantly locate FGM, CEJ and bone.
Make the flap-vs-flapless call on data, not feel — the threshold is a number.
Design reductively in 3DNA so your prep starts exactly where you planned it.
Run flapless gingivectomy + ostectomy with an €80 SonicFlex tip instead of a €6,000 piezo unit.
Build a tissue guide your technician can execute foolproof — and confirm its accuracy virtually before you print.
Avoid the bulky-cervical / chronic-inflammation trap by reducing the right tissue and bone.
Fully guided Smilecloud tutorials, Case reports, PDF handouts, Tips & Tricks for flapless Crown lenghtening, Hands-on tasks.
Why crown lengthening, the four etiologies of gummy smile, and why ~80% of cases are altered passive eruption — the most predictable wins of all.
Visualization-first approach in SmileCloud: upload the photo, build the avatar, align both jaws. Input defines output.
Segmentation, the full tissue module, and biologically-guided virtual gingivectomy. The cross-section is where the decision lives.
Post-ortho "tiny fix" (gingivectomy + injectable composite), the same-source-scan philosophy, flapless and flap cases, and the composite-veneer compromise — with all assets from SmileCloud.
Crown Lengthening — Planning & Decision Handbook (PDF)
Decision Rules one-pager: flap vs flapless (PDF)
Lifetime access · self-paced · downloadable handbooks + STL/CBCT/photo files
FAQ section
You've got questions. We've got answers.
The full power is in segmentation, and you'll learn exactly how to use it. But the decision framework (the three measurements, the flap-vs-flapless rules) applies even before you adopt it.
No. The flapless workflow runs on an ~€80 SonicFlex tip (use 0.20, not 0.30). That's the point.
The decision system applies anywhere. The cases focus on the aesthetic zone, where the margin for error is smallest.
This is a standalone, focused track on crown lengthening and the flap-vs-flapless decision. It goes deep on one thing instead of wide on many.