While the patient sits comfortably in a chair, the German-made cone beam head and neck CT scanner can capture a complete 360-degree, 240-frame set of images in just 14 seconds.
It is understood to be only the third machine of its type in New Zealand.
The others are in Auckland and Christchurch.
The scanner produces 3-D images that technologists, dentists and doctors can use to examine teeth, jawbones, skulls, nasal passages and sinuses.
At the push of a button, viewers can order an image at whatever angle is required. The images can be rotated on screen and saved for inspection later.
The scanner was a ''fantastic resource'', dental school facilities and clinical services associate dean Dr Warwick Duncan said.
''We have been sending about one patient a month to Auckland but there was a backlog. Plus there was the inconvenience and expense of the travel.''
The university received the scanner as an unexpected extra, he said.
When it advertised for companies to supply 73 mannequins and associated digital and computerised equipment for the dental simulation laboratory, the company that won the bid said it would also supply a digital dental X-ray machine and the cone beam scanner for the money the university was prepared to spend.
The simulation laboratory, which cost almost $4 million to create and fit out in the old dental school library, opened at the start of last year.
However, Dr Duncan said because a new room had to be built for the cone beam scanner and three staff trained, the scanner was not commissioned until the end of September.
Fewer than 20 patients from Otago and Southland had been scanned so far, although he expected usage to increase substantially this year.
For dentists, the scanner was invaluable when planning the manufacture and insertion of dental implants.
In the past, it could take up to a year to plan the placement of implants, have them made and insert them, Dr Duncan said.
Now, a complete set of a patient's images could be emailed directly to the implant manufacturer overseas, usually in the United States or Sweden, and the implants made to fit.
The patient only had to be seen twice, he said, once to be scanned and once to have the implants fitted. The manufacture of the implants was also quicker.
Dr Duncan expected Dunedin's scanner would also be used by dental and medical researchers, and by medical specialists when correcting dental and facial deformities or carrying out reconstructive surgery after accident or illness.
