June 2005 - Vol. 48 No. 6

The growing interest among the graphics, vision, and manufacturing communities in transmitting 3D computer-aided design (CAD) image files directly to inexpensive fabrication machines promises on-demand physical prototype consumer products, industrial components, mechanical parts, biomedical parts, scientific visualizations, heritage reproductions, and even abstract artwork.

Why are only certain consumer products the hot gifts to give and to get each holiday season? Last year the digital camera and the iPod portable music player (and its MP3 clones) were perhaps the leading contenders. One part of the answer is they are deliberately designed to deliver a high-quality consumer experience. Or as my colleague in Japan, Noriaki Kano of the University of Tokyo, has said about the best products, they "surprise and delight" the first wave of consumers to use them. The next part of the economic cycle is that the products are praised in design magazines and by word-of-mouth; before long they are must-have items for perhaps millions worldwide.

From the moment we're born, we learn to use and depend on our sense of touch to gain knowledge and understanding of the world around us. Today, it can also be exploited to understand scientific data. Rapid prototyping, or layered manufacturing (LM), is a mainstream technology in engineering product development, enabling engineers to create prototype parts from new designs before their organizations invest in final production. The Center for Visualization Prototypes (CVP) at Oregon State University (originally at the San Diego Supercomputer Center) uses LM technology to create 3D visualization hard copies, collaborating with geologists, astronomers, oceanographers, cartographers, biomedical researchers, chemists, and other scientists to enhance data understanding. During its 10 years of operation, it has fabricated more than 1,000 physical models, helping them visualize their data.

From the holodeck in "Star Trek" to the slice-by-slice reconstruction of the alien Leeloo played by actress Milla Jovovich in the movie The Fifth Element, science fiction has long predicted the possibility of automated one-off construction of the most complex objects from a stream of digital information. While we are still a long way from being able to build living beings in this manner, digitally controlled layered manufacturing (LM) technologies are transforming prototyping and mass customization of mechanical and biomedical parts of extraordinary geometric complexity.

Many technical and scientific objects are far too complex to be properly understood through pictures. 3D representations that can be touched and physically manipulated by the observer convey information not obtainable from 2D projections. Thanks to some emerging affordable rapid prototyping (RP) technologies, such models are beginning to find a role in design, science, and manufacturing. RP is already firmly established in the automotive industry and among designers of consumer products, including household appliances, toys, and electronics. With this personal case study from the arts and mathematics, I hope to encourage designers from other application domains to use RP technologies as a truly 3D physical visualization tool.

The digital rights management problem of protecting data from theft and misuse has been addressed for many information types, including software code, digital images, and audio files. Few technological solutions are designed specifically to protect interactive 3D graphics content.Demand for ways to protect 3D graphical models is significant and growing. Contemporary 3D digitization technologies allow the efficient creation of accurate 3D models of many physical objects. For example, our Stanford Digital Michelangelo Project [3] has developed a high-resolution digital archive of 10 of Michelangelo's large statues, including the David (see the sidebar "Generating a Replica of Michelangelo's David"). These statues represent the artistic patrimony of Italy's cultural institutions, and our contract with the Italian authorities permits distribution of the 3D models only to established scholars for noncommercial use. Though everyone involved would like the models to be available for any constructive purpose, the digital 3D model of the David would quickly be pirated if it were distributed without protection; simulated marble replicas would be manufactured outside the provisions of the parties authorizing creation of the model.

The Bible---an unlikely resource for language technology research---proves ideal for evaluating OCR techniques.