Thomas Funkhouser

The number of 3D geometric models available in online repositories is growing dramatically. Examples include: the Protein Data Bank [1], which stores the 3D atomic coordinates for 29,000 protein molecules; the National Design Repository [9], which stores 3D computer-aided design (CAD) models for tens of thousands of mechanical parts; and the Princeton Shape Database [5], which stores polygonal surface models for 36,000 everyday objects crawled from the Web. Since graphics hardware is getting faster and 3D scanning hardware cheaper, there is every reason to believe that demand for and supply of 3D models will continue to increase into the future, leading to an online environment in which 3D models are as plentiful as images, videos, and audio files today.