Enhancing Product Development through CT Images, Computer-Aided Design and Rapid Manufacturing: Present Capabilities, Main Applications and Challenges

1.1 Historical perspective of product development methodologies It is difficult to find the origins of what we call “systematic design”. To offer but one example, anyone studying the diagrams and sketches of Leonardo da Vinci can hardly fail to observe the depth of his analysis and how he systematically used variations to suggest possible solutions and be able to compare them (Taddei, Kaiser, Konig, 2006, Bautista, 2007). Up to the Industrial revolution, product design and development work was essentially linked to art and craft and only with the gradual mechanization of processes halfway through the 19th Century did a need begin to emerge to optimize the use of materials and perform detailed studies on strength, stiffness, wear, friction, assembly and maintenance (Reuleaux, 1875). However, it was not until the 20th Century that a systematic evaluation of these parameters was put forward as a way of gradually reaching an optimal solution. (Erkens, Worgebauer). Just before the Second World War a need was beginning to be noticed to rationalize product design processes but progress in this direction was hampered by the following factors: • An absence of effective methods for representing abstract ideas. • The widespread belief that design was an art and not a technical activity that could be carried out methodically and not just through creativity. A large-scale use of systematic design methodologies would have to wait for these limitations to be overcome and for the introduction of a more widespread use of automation and the appearance of more modern data processing procedures. Modern ideas on systematic development were given an enormous boost by relevant figures (Kesselring, 1951, 1954, Tschochner, 1954, Matousek, 1957 or Niemann, 1950, 1965, 1975), whose revolutionary ideas continue to suggest ways of solving and dealing with specific tasks related to machine and product design processes (Kaiser, Konig, 2006). During the 40s and the 50s Kesserling put forward a method based on successive approaches where each approach optimized different variables in line with technical and economic criteria. He also proposed several principles like “minimal production costs”, “minimal weight and