Prototypes in Industrial Design

摘要

Once a design goes digital, all sorts of things are possible. It starts as an idea, captured with a few hurried scribbles on the nearest scrap of paper. It ends on a store shelf or a showroom floor. That's how product designs turn into products. But between those two points is a complex trail of discovery, insight, and aggravation that's called industrial design. Whether developing an entirely new product or refining an existing one, the industrial designer somehow has to translate scribbled inspiration into an object that can be manufactured. How this unfolds is highly varied, but one constant in the process is the creation and manipulation of digital content. As any designer will tell you, "We are no longer in 2D anymore." Once a design goes digital, all sorts of things are possible. In a digital world, sketches are quickly developed into 3D renderings and now, renderings go directly to machines that turn them into 3D prototypes. Industrial designers rely on product models and prototypes to work out nuances of the design that simply don't show up on a monitor. Now that the process no longer relies on long lead times and expensive hand working, prototypes are being used more frequently, often resulting in more successful designs.