COLOR MY WORLD; MONOCHROMATIC 3-D PROTOTYPING IS ALREADY A CRITICAL DESIGN TOOL, BUT NOW COMPANIES CAN PRODUCE COLOR MODELS OF INSOLES THAT PAINT AN EVEN BETTER PICTURE OF THE FINAL PRODUCT.(Reebok International Ltd. uses 3 D printing technology)

Footwear News, July, 2006 by Power, Denise

Byline: Denise Power

Product prototypes - so critical to the footwear design process - just took on a colorful new dimension.

Canton, Mass.-based Reebok is one of the latest of a growing number of companies to adopt technology that makes 3-D molds of product parts in color, reflecting a designer's vision more accurately than ever before. Until recently, most prototype-making machines could create only monochromatic versions using 3-D printing, a process that uses plaster or other materials to produce a life-sized, what-you-see-is-what-you-get sample of an item.

Now, with the addition of color into the process, "people are excited," said Paul Bates,

director of advanced process engineering at Reebok. "It's a whole other...