User's Guide to Rapid Prototyping

Book excerpt: This book provides a baseline of rapid prototyping technologies to guide users and business leaders through the evaluation, justification, and implementation process. Rapid prototyping is a powerful tool for design, engineering and manufacturing, and is used in nearly every industry that manufactures mechanical components. This book fills the knowledge gap for the industry novice through an in-depth analysis of the various rapid prototyping technologies and processes. It also covers the technology's strengths, limitations, benefits and associated costs to aid the decision making process. Also included are comparisons to other processes such as CNC machining. In an age where better, faster, cheaper is the mantra for product development, this book offers invaluable information that will help you decide if rapid prototyping is the right tool to solve your specific design and manufacturing challenges.