A 3D design apparatus is cheaper than traditional clay modeling. Today you can start a design by spending 50,000 euros ($56,500) on computer hardware and software, Perini said.

An AI method enables the generation of sharp, high-quality 3D shapes that are closer to the quality of the best 2D image models. Previous approaches typically generated blurry or cartoonish 3D shapes.

A new computational approach, built on data-driven techniques, is making it possible to turn simple 2D sketch into a realistic 3D shape, with little or no user input necessary.