A method for designing and manufacturing implant based restorations is disclosed. The method involves the use of Scannable Temporary Anatomic References to provide very reliable, fixed points of reference to enable a technician to relate and superimpose the dental implant position to a pre-planned restoration with a very high degree of accuracy throughout the entire workflow. The method can be carried out by placing Scannable Temporary Anatomic References in a jaw, on teeth, and/or in implants, collecting images by scanning a mouth, relating those images to images of a appearance of desired dental implant based restoration, placing an implant in the jaw, scanning the scannable temporary anatomic references to create a new set of images, relating the images, and producing a restoration based on the images.