These boots were made ... rapidly?

Frances Bryant, a research assistant at UMR's Virtual Reality & Rapid Prototyping Lab, gives Women's Wear Daily the scoop behind 3-D prototyping.

A 3-D product prototype is an essential communication tool around which design, development, sales and marketing people rally before finalizing a style. New ideas may begin as a sketch on a cocktail napkin before they are converted to 3-D models on a computer, but until a concept takes physical form, it’s hard for most people to grasp, and that can delay decisions.

Three-dimensional printing is one of several manufacturing processes that fall into the larger family of rapid prototyping. “Rapid prototyping is a way to create a three-dimensional part in a quick manner," said Frances Bryant, a research assistant at the Virtual Reality & Rapid Prototyping Lab at the University of Missouri-Rolla. “Instead of setting up fixtures, tools, etc., in a factory to create a model, everything is done with a computer program and a machine that can make a part on demand in a relatively short time."

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