During the creative process, designers use various techniques and strategies to move from the abstract to the concrete, utilizing different physical and virtual means to represent form. The changes between virtual and physical models are not always fluent, however. Differential 3D scanning can detect the differences between a scanned model (point cloud) and a reference model (polygon mesh or CAD model) and then reflect those changes in the reference model. This can save designers time by reconstructing only the small changed regions rather than the entire object.