Most moldmakers are already familiar with using surface modeling techniques to undertake minor modifications to product designs—such as adjusting draft angles or increasing fillet radii to ease the flow of material—and to create extra geometry for the core and cavity, such as split surfaces.

Equally, most then use solid modeling to design the remainder of the mold stack, since these components tend to be simpler, prismatic shapes that are able to be created more easily and quickly as solid models. The addition of triangle modeling gives an extra level of flexibility.
Triangle data is generated from three main sources.

The most common source is reverse engineering, generated either when capturing data from existing designs for which CAD data does not exist or when prototypes have been modified by hand and the CAD data needs to be updated. The second type is that produced by haptic devices that are used for digital sculpting of very complex shapes (e.g., the toy and model industry). Thirdly, triangle data is produced by relief modeling software that is used to add decorations, including logos and 3-D images to product designs, especially packaging.

Whatever its source, the triangle data can be converted to surfaces and then used within a conventional CAD system to re-engineer the existing design into an improved product or to create tooling from reverse engineered scan data. However, for more complex shapes, this can be a time-consuming process that might lose some of the fine detail in the design.