Designers Favor Rapid Prototyping
03/13/2009
It goes without saying that designers in all parts of the globe are becoming attached to the process of rapid prototyping in a marked manner. The concept of same day parts is now growing popular. One of the reasons is that in the past the designers found it both time consuming and expensive to obtain the prototypes of objects as they were made using the traditional subtractive technologies. In result they could never get the prototypes quickly.
On the other hand the geometric control that rapid prototyping allows the designer ensures economic manufacturing of the objects. When you are going to have millions of specimens of the same object there may be no harm in going for expensive machines and technologies. The inconveniences can be neutralized by spreading over the costs that will automatically come down due to numerical strength and superiorities. However, the same machines could turn out to be too expensive propositions when it comes to manufacturing only 10-100 specimens of the item. In such cases rapid prototyping is the only solution.
Pay less and get more at a faster rate is the essence of rapid prototyping technologies. It could even enable you to shelve the tools altogether and fabricate the object directly in its final shape. Even more important aspect of the popularity of rapid prototyping is that you may not need any physical part at all. Virtual prototyping is now catching the imagination of designers. This can be easily achieved with the use of computers and simple CAD software.
And even when it comes to the physical part, same day shipping for custom designed parts could only be possible with technologies like rapid prototyping.