hello,
im currently a air-plasma/hvof operator and my shop also have cvd and pvd, and from what i know from cvd and pvd (this is my lack of true information)is that most of those furnace will cover the entire item or large area of surface with the application that you seek, now with hvof,(its my main job) you can shot a very dense and very hard metals that can be sized to proper dimention once finish, the nice thing about hvof is you can pin point the exact location of the coation area you wish to aim for and deposite from .001" to .100" depending on the powers.
the way hvof works is a mixed of gases, usaly oxygen and hydrogen, the speed of the molten powder is about 1800 fps and it works on impact density compared to air plasma which is intense heat.the real applications for hvof are mostly for areas of extreme wear,rust resistance,extreme heat and hardness.
some of the metals we do is tungsten,carbide,cobalt.
ceramic is usaly done with air-plasma due to its high heat needed to convert the powder ceramic form into an application coating
hope this helps