You have a carefully crafted clay prototype made by a top design artist. Each detail is exquisite and you want to make sure every last one is molded into the finished article. Contact measurement isn't an option, because the piece is too complex and too malleable for touch probes. You need computer-aided design (CAD) data of the entire part so it can be reproduced as soon as possible. How can you quickly and accurately digitize your intricate free-form shape and then fabricate it on a condensed timeline?

One problem all product designers and engineers face is how to manifest their design vision in physical form, and how to do it as time efficiently as possible. While designing products in the many CAD programs available may work for some types of parts, others require a good old-fashioned prototype that can be held, tested, and “tweaked” in the real world before taking on its digital version for today’s computer-driven manufacturing processes.

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