Today, the most important application of CT has become scanning for 3D-digitizing purposes. First of all, automotive and motorcycle industries as well as their suppliers and the medical technology show a very strong interest in the new possibilities that CT offers. Using this new technology it is possible to reduce the time to market for development of new products. Thus companies can realise substantial competitive advantages.

This paper is about the experiences made working with CT data on parametric CAD, namely with commercially available software tools. For the creation of point cloud data from CT data, it was necessary to develop new algorithms, because the existing tools did not provide satisfying results. Creation of point clouds for first article inspection of aluminium cast parts has become an everyday business at EMPA.