Protecting Intellectual Property When Publishing 3-D Models

Light-weight 3-D models offer improved communication and visualization for advertising, marketing, service technicians, suppliers and other business partners. These models also may be a ready source of geometry and a window into a company's intellectual property for miscreants seeking to pirate designs and to produce counterfeit or will-fit parts.What approaches and tools are available to help protect a company's intellectual property while enabling it and its business partners to benefit from widespread distribution of 3-D animations and models? How should they be applied to effectively protect intellectual property?This paper provides a general survey of techniques available for protecting intellectual property in 3-D models when sending these files outside of a company and into broad distribution.