Resolution adaptive volume sculpting
Graphical Models - Volume modeling
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Centuries ago, craftsmen made objects to their own design. A single person was generally responsible for both the function and the appearance of a tool or device. With the Industrial Revolution, design became specialized; design and production were handled by different people. Often design was dictated by the needs of efficient manufacturing. As engineering advanced, design became more involved and specialized, straying farther and farther from the intuition and experience that had guided craftsmen for centuries. Product appearance was in danger of being dominated by engineering considerations.In the 1930s, the field of industrial design was born, led by Raymond Loewy, Walter Dorwin Teague and others. These sought to specialize design still further by hiring someone to create the visual appearance of a product. The premise was that a company could make its products more sellable (i.e., make more money) by investing in the visual appearance of its products.In automotive design, style was initially the province of a few expensive coachbuilders: the wealthy could have a custom-styled car, much as today they can wear one-of-a-kind clothes from a famous designer. In parallel with the birth of industrial design for other products like radios and railway engines, Harley Earl started the Art and Color Department at General Motors. This group sought to improve the appearance of GM vehicles, as well as to keep the GM brands distinct as they migrated to shared internal body structures; they effectively brought designer style to ready-to-wear clothing. GM's success in the '20s and '30s led other manufacturers to follow suit.Computer-aided design has followed a similar path: first it was used to aid manufacturing; later, for functional, engineering design. Only in the last decade has it penetrated aesthetic industrial design. Computer-aided industrial design (CAID) is CAD adapted and specialized for aesthetic design. From a designer's point of view, CAD is for the pocket-protector brigade, while CAID is for the creative.My own exposure to CAID has been over the last 13 years from within the design organization of a car manufacturer. This vantage point has advantages and disadvantages: a car-maker's design environment certainly isn't typical of industrial design as a whole, but car-makers have been innovators and drivers of CAID technology.