It takes several minutes to warm up the laser and prepare it for digitization and black goggles must be worn to avoid sight damage from the beam's bright light. When primed, the laser shoots at the predetermined target and begins to split its molecules into a digital code, which is shown as billions of cubes. Each cube is quickly extracted one by one and sucked into the laser beam to be suspended in the beam until the model is played back, at which point the molecules fall back into place and the target returns to its physical form.