3D Scanning: Professor Thomas Duchamp, along with members of the UW Departments of Statistics and Computer Science and Engineering and Microsoft Research, has been working for several years on the mathematics of 3D scanning -- creating computer models of surfaces from data generated by laser scanners or range cameras. The goal of 3D scanning is the inverse of computer aided manufacturing: given a physical object, create a computer model of the object, capturing its shape, color, reflectance, and other visual properties. Mathematically, this means developing efficient algorithms for finding equations to represent a surface in space and its physical properties from a sample of hundreds of thousands of points scattered around the surface. The main mathematical tools are subdivision surfaces and wavelet analysis. In 1996, a group of UW faculty members formed a company called Manifold Graphics, Inc., to develop commercial applications of these ideas.