When and where did I first see one? Is a dynamotor from a C-54 an alternator? It has 110 volt AC output. I saw it before 1953. In 1982 I worked for Palm Beach generator and I saw a lot of portable 220 volt configurations including experimental ceramic magnet parts. This part actually depends on a course I took in college, "Electricity and Magnetism." It alos depends on the failure of the first generator in my first car and a trip to the Chevrolet dealership where they decided it needed a new end plate with bushing and that had caused a need for a new armature and a voltage regulator. Those parts came out of standard rectangular Delco-Remy cardboard cartons with steel ends. I didn't see a factory installed alternator until Chrysler began using them in 1960. When I got a new car in 1966 the alternator did not have the open cage look of a Chrysler part but had a more closed look but was still of aluminum but greyer not so silvery. It was a Delco-Remy, which is a GM trade name. This is an important shift in my modelling because this part is of later than 1983 state of the art when Alias began supplying digital art products to GM. There is possibly an official digital representation of this part possibly even in 3DSMax. When I export my Carrara modelling conventions into a .3ds file to transfer to Poser my licenses for Carrara native and exported 3ds and Alias/Wavefront .obj will be in force. I have no idea of what actual forms of this part exist other than mine. Reading the COREL/DRAW 5 manual in 1996 told me artists were not totally commited to digital. Later newspaper accounts of 3D and digital art in automobile design indicate that paper water color rendering was preferred. Architectural renders in marker were shown in a book I bought and also similar art for free lance car designs in a book on drawing cars. So I can assure you this is 3D digital art but I cannot tell you how different or similar that is to any practices worldwide in complete accounting. There was an attempt on my part to make this model follow current state of the art to the limit of my ability and short term memory. No tracing, scans, scalings or printouts were used. No reverse engineeering of any materials or configuration occured. What did occur is examination of whether this part is indeed a candidate for 3D digital treatment. Is it too hard? Does it take time or dedication that would not be available in a high pressure design environment? The key phrases I tracked from the sources I had were, "budget, optimization, millimeters, surprise." One of the motivations for my art was to look at just how different close to real configurations were from the kinds of geometric representations necessary to analytic calculations. This was how I hoped to eventually sell my work to the CAD/CAM/CAE community. This is why I look a lot at the freeform that is foundry that is not just cosmetic more so than body where strength is important but not totally paramount. This is about bulk as a modulus and as a base and damper.