Definition:

• Rapid prototyping is a technique for quickly creating one or more prototypes to verify the feasibility of a design.
• Rapid tooling is a technique for quickly manufacturing molds that can be used to produce small or large batches of parts or components.

How to Manufacture:

• It usually uses technologies such as 3D printing, stereolithography (SLA), selective laser sintering (SLS) to create physical models directly from digital models.
• It involves using rapid prototyping technology to create the core or cavity of the mold, and then using these molds for injection molding, casting or other manufacturing processes.

Purpose:

• The purpose of rapid prototyping is to help designers and engineers find and correct problems in the design at an early stage, such as design verification, functional testing, visual display, etc.
• The purpose of rapid tooling is to shorten the time from design to market, reduce development costs, and allow for rapid response to market changes.

Role in development process:

• Rapid prototyping usually does not involve mass production, but focuses on iteration and improvement in the design stage.
• Rapid tooling can be used to produce a small number of custom parts or for trial production before mass production.

In general, rapid prototyping focuses more on the verification and testing phase of the design, while rapid tooling is designed to quickly produce molds that can be used for production, thereby accelerating the product’s time to market. The two can be used in combination, first using rapid prototyping to verify the design, and then using rapid tooling to produce parts or components.