Methods and systems for characterizing a dentition of a patient including receiving an initial dentition of a patient, generating an initial profile representing the initial dentition of the patient, identifying an initial malocclusion from the initial profile, comparing at least a portion of the initial profile with one or more reference profiles of reference dentitions, wherein said one or more reference profiles includes a reference malocclusion substantially similar to the initial malocclusion, and calculating a value for the closeness of the initial profile and the reference profile are provided.
