The systems and methods disclosed herein employ a scanning system for capturing highly detailed three-dimensional representations of dental subject matter that may be used to virtually model a variety of dental objects, including dental hardware, appliances, and prosthetics, as well as interim components of dental manufacture such as waxups, investment casts, and the like. These digital models may be used with fabrication technologies such as stereo lithography, three- dimensional printing, computerized milling, and the like to manufacture dental objects precisely fitted to the dentition of individual dental patients. In one aspect, the systems and methods disclosed herein employ a combination of digital three-dimensional modeling and rapid fabrication technologies to provide pre-indexed, pre-registered, and/or precut components for articulated dental models. Dental articulators and components of dental models as described herein may use a positioning key to encode positional information for components of the dental model, and/or a reference grid on mounting surfaces to enforce local accuracy of fabricated parts against a fixed reference array.