Reverse Engineering

Reverse engineering typically measuring an existing object surface or solid model can be utilizing the advances in technologies. starts with so that a created by CAD/CAM

Application Areas
It is often necessary to produce a copy of a part, when no original drawings or manufacturing documentation are available.
In other cases we may want to re-engineer an existing past, when analysis and modification are required to construct a new improved product. In some cases it is necessary only to extract 2D-profile data from the model as the complete part may be efficiently modelled using these profiles and a surface CAD/CAM system. Potential application area can be found in the injection moulding industry (rapid tooling, recovery broken moulds or duplicating a mould), and other fields such as medical and chemical industry, film industry, and toy industry.

Phases of Reverse Engineering

The whole Reverse Engineering process can be divided into four steps: 1. Scanning Digitizing 2. Processing captured data 3. Surface creation (*.stl or CAD-surface) 4. CAM or technician documentation

Scanning

Processing of Captured data

DATA Acquisition

3D Scanning
computer-aided design (CAD) digital model physical object

reverse engineering/ 3D scanning

shape

color

material

surface reconstruction

Why 3D scanning?

Digital models for many objects dont exist.

reverse engineering (Boeing 737X) archiving virtual environments

Traditional design (using clay)

car industry computer animation

3D faxing!

Surface reconstruction
points P surface S

reverse engineering traditional design (wood,clay) virtual environments

Surface reconstruction problem

Given: points P sampled from unknown surface U Goal: reconstruct a surface S approximating U

accurate (w.r.t. P, and U!) concise

Why is this difficult?

Points P

unorganized noisy

Surface S

arbitrary, unknown topological type sharp features

Algorithm must infer:

topology, geometry, and sharp features

3-Phase reconstruction method

points
Goals: Find initial surface of correct topological type. Improve its accuracy and conciseness. Find piecewise smooth surface.

phase 1
initial mesh

phase 2
optimized mesh phase 3

Detect sharp features automatically

optimized subdivision surface

Example
1 2

13,000 points

Phase 1: Initial surface estimation

If U were known, it would satisfy U = Z(d) = { p | d(p)=0 } , where d(p) is the signed distance of p to U

d(p)? + + + + + + + ++ + + ++ + + d(p)? + + + + + + + + + +

Estimate d from P

Extract Z(d)

Phase 1 (contd)

How to estimate d?
orient them consistently

compute tangent planes

Phase 1 (contd)

How to extract Z(d)?

run marching cubes

Phase 2: Mesh optimization

Input: data points P, initial mesh Minitial

Output: optimized mesh M, minimizing E(M) = Edistance + Ecomplexity

Phase 2 (contd)

Optimization over:

the number of vertices

their connectivity

their positions

consider any mesh of the same topological type as Minitial

Phase 2 (contd)
Nested optimization: optimize connectivity for fixed connectivity, optimize geometry Greedy approach:

consider local perturbations accept if DE(M)<0

edge collapse

edge split

edge swap

Phase 2: Results

using 31,000 points from Digibotics, Inc.

using 13,000 points using 182,000 points from Technical Arts Co.

Phase 3: Piecewise smooth surface

piecewise planar piecewise smooth surface

Subdivision surfaces

M0

M1

M2

S=M

tagged control mesh

Phase 3 (contd)

Generalize phase 2 optimization:

edge collapse

edge split

edge swap

edge tag

Again, apply perturbation if DE(M)<0

Phase 3: Results

Related work
volumetric representation phase 1
initial mesh phase 2 alpha shapes

optimized mesh
phase 3 optimized subdivision surface NURBS surface

CAD models

REVERSE ENGINEERING OF MEDICAL COMPONENT CASE STUDY

ULTRA SOUND TRANSDUCER

Scanned Surface Point Cloud Data from 3D object

Steps Involved in Reverse engineering

Import the Polygon Model

Method for Creating CAD Model 1. Modeling Method 2. Patching

Modeling Creating Cross sections Export the section as iges or step in cad software

Patching

Creating Nurb patches through Nurb patches into Nur curves Nurb Surface into Nur

Export the Nurb model as iges or Cad Model step in cad software Inspect the model for variation

Creating through curves

NURB surface generation

Comparison & Validation of Scanned surface with 3D mo

NURB Model

3D-Cad model

Deviation check Scanned Surface & 3D Model