So i'm looking at developing a ducktail style spoiler for the mx5 mk3,

i have excatly what it should look like in my head, and there's the problem! how do i get from this idea to something phisical?

firstly i will need to get accurate dimensions and shape of the boot lid from the car, the finished product needs to fit snuggly to the compound curves of the panel.

i'm sure some sort of 3d laser scanner exists, scan the car, import into autocad or similar and go from there, but this is out of reach for most of us.

I guess the another option would be to take a mould from the actual car itself then use this to make a plug?

Does anyone have experience of any (cost effective) methods of taking a CAD design to tooling using commercial rapid prototyping processes?

I've been glancing at companies like Imaterialise recently and imagining the benefits of taking something directly from concept to tool

When I say "cost effective" I guess what I actually mean is "If you were to use the tool to create commercial parts, would the price of commisioning the tooling be less than about 10 x the unit sale price of the components you produce from it?".

Bonobo, I've heard (and I'm no expert) that 3D laser scanners can be a nightmare to use, and the plots often require a lot of cleaning up. That said, I'd prefer to make my own mind up on this and would love to have one to play with.

Good luck!