A method, apparatus, and article of manufacture provide a distributed
computing system delivering and manipulating electronic model images to
end users. One aspect of the present invention includes a method for
providing electronic delivery of electronic model images. The method
generates one or more electronic model images, a portion of the
electronic model images being generated from scanned electronic data of a
physical object, stores the electronic model images within computer
readable memory of a server-based computing system, delivers the
electronic model images to a remote client computer over a distributed
communications network, manipulates the electronic model images upon the
remote client computer, and performs analysis and a course of action
using the manipulated electronic model images. The electronic model
images comprise in part a polygonal mesh representation of the physical
object.