Virtual and Physical Prototyping

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Review of reverse engineering systems – current

state of the art

Zhaohui Geng & Bopaya Bidanda

To cite this article: Zhaohui Geng & Bopaya Bidanda (2017) Review of reverse engineering
systems – current state of the art, Virtual and Physical Prototyping, 12:2, 161-172, DOI:
10.1080/17452759.2017.1302787

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Published online: 22 Mar 2017.

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VIRTUAL AND PHYSICAL PROTOTYPING, 2017
VOL. 12, NO. 2, 161–172
https://doi.org/10.1080/17452759.2017.1302787

Review of reverse engineering systems – current state of the art

Zhaohui Geng and Bopaya Bidanda
Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Reverse engineering (RE) has been widely applied in many segments of industry when digital or Received 10 February 2017
geometric models of existing physical objects are unavailable. This paper details components of Accepted 2 March 2017
RE systems and describes the needs for RE in manufacturing industries. Commonly used contact
KEYWORDS
and non-contact scanning techniques are described. Possible interfaces with other manufacturing Reverse engineering; 3D
processes, especially 3D printing (3DP), are discussed. This paper also describes new trends in the printing; scanning
field that include increased speed, accuracy, and level of automation in the future. Finally, a techniques; 3D modelling;
discussion on two major tolerance issues in terms of integrating RE and 3DP are presented. tolerancing

Introduction . Design of new product: In most cases, design,

Reverse engineering (RE) plays an important role in
shortening the throughput time in the manufacturing
cycle. Broadly speaking, RE can be defined as a systema-
tic process that extracts design information from an
existing product. While products in many different
industries including software, defence systems,
medical and rehabilitation products, consumer elec-
tronics, etc., can be reverse engineered, our focus for
this paper is on geometric models from mechanical pro-
ducts. Unlike the traditional manufacturing sequence,
where 3D CAD modelling is usually time-consuming
(Chua and Leong 2017), the RE process starts from an
actual product and undertakes a sequence of measur-
ing and analysing steps to obtain the geometric
model as can be seen in Figure 1. A wide variety of RE
systems are available due to the multitude of geome-
tries, materials, and tolerances that need to be reverse
engineered. Especially, industries like turbine manufac-
turing (Chintala and Gudimetla 2014, Kaplan et al. 2015),
aerospace (Raja and Fernandes 2007), biomedicine
(Creehan and Bidanda 2006a, Chua and Yeong 2014),
culture heritage (Segreto et al. 2013), farming (Viana
et al. 2016), as well as membrane module manufactur-
ing for desalination and water treatment (Lee et al.
2016), the CAD files of interested parts are usually una-
vailable or inaccessible.
This paper builds on a previous state-of-the-art survey
published about 25 years (Motavalli and Bidanda 1991),
and updates the current state of the field. RE needs
can be categorised as follows:
especially for products designed from model testing
(streamlined design, turbine blade design, injection
mould design, etc.) or products with aesthetic lines
or design often starts from a physical prototype
without CAD information.
. Modification of existing products: Designs are often
iteratively modified in order to get higher functionality
or performances. However, CAD models for the product
after modification will not be available and need to be
reverse engineered to store digital design data.
. Loss of product design data: In some instances, exist-
ing parts need to be manufactured, but either the CAD
model is no longer available or the data file is corrupt.
. Verify the product: The RE system can be used to
extract the dimensional information of the part and
compared with CAD model; this can then be used to
determine the deviation from the design.
In this paper, we first introduce the overall RE process,
the reminder of the paper is devoted to the review on
individual components of the RE processes. First, the
current state-of-the-art digitisation/scanning techniques
will be surveyed, and the taxonomy based on measuring
techniques will be provided. Next, the strategies to inter-
face RE with other manufacturing processes through
CAD platforms will be briefly reviewed. As in a survey,
we do not attempt to present each topic in detail;
instead, we primarily focus on important conceptual
issues. Interested readers will find the relevant research
contributions in the reference list.

CONTACT Bopaya Bidanda bidanda@pitt.edu

© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
162 Z. GENG AND B. BIDANDA
Figure 1. Traditional vs. RE manufacturing processes.
The reverse engineering process
Compared to the traditional manufacturing sequence, in
which a part is first designed and manufactured, RE starts
without a CAD file but from an existing part, and then
clones or redesigns the part into a digital model that
can be utilised to plan for the manufacture of the part.
The main assumption under RE is that the existing proto-
type or product embodies the major product specifica-
tions, like materials, processes, geometric information,
etc. Among these specifications, geometric information
is the most important when considering manufacturing
processes selection and parameter designs. Current
state-of-the-art manufacturing processes are usually
computer aided, which makes translating the geometric
information to a computer identifiable version necessary
and unavoidable. In order to achieve this objective, a
CAD model of the part should first be acquired,
because a CAD model is a widely used ‘language’
Figure 2. Basic steps of RE.
within the context of manufacturing automation for
communication and documentation within the digital
world of design and manufacturing. Therefore, RE can
be broadly divided into two basic steps based on the
objectives: (1) to transform the target from the physical
world to the digital world and (2) to interface with
other manufacturing processes, as shown in Figure 2.
In order to transform from physical world to digital
world, RE starts with geometric information collection,
or digitisation processes. Traditionally, the name ‘digi-
tisation’ comes from the process of taking discrete
points from 3D surfaces with specific machines, e.g.
coordinate measuring machine (CMM). However, with
the emergence of new technologies, such as stereo
vision, machine vision techniques, computed tomogra-
phy (CT), etc., the digitisation process can be generally
summarised as the process of acquiring dimensional
data from undefined surfaces, synonymous with scan-
ning. To improve scanning techniques, which are

crucial for the quality of the 3D model, much recent
research has focused on developing strategies (path
planning, sampling, etc.) for better scanning.
After digitising the part, an essential process is to
convert the point cloud to geometric forms that can
be used in CAD platforms to interface with other man-
ufacturing processes; without this conversion, data are
just a sea of coordinates with little meaning. The data
collected by digitisation have random in nature, that
need preprocessing step to transform it into usable
format and exclude the outliers. Then, different
surface representations are available to describe the
outside surface of the target, which can be broadly
divided into algebraic forms and parametric forms.
Within each surface representation, external surfaces
can be fitted from data clouds, and, according to the
surfaces, a CAD model can be obtained. We combine
these separate processes as a way to interface with
other manufacturing techniques. However, the auto-
mation of this combined process with precision
remains a future challenge; although the surfaces can
be easily identified by the human eye and brain, but
they are not obvious to a set of sensors and an intelli-
gent set of algorithms.
Although the steps in Figure 2 seem sequential, the
real RE processes are truly looped and several iterations
may be required to get the final CAD model with
Figure 3. Taxonomy of RE technologies.
VIRTUAL AND PHYSICAL PROTOTYPING 163
objective accuracy. The next two sections will present
these two steps in detail.
Digitisation techniques
To achieve the part design information, accurate geo-
metric data collection, also known as digitisation, is
invariably considered as the starting point for every RE
process. Digitisation is the process of collecting the
data of surfaces of the objects and converting the data
to a digital form. As the first stage of RE, digitisation pro-
cesses have serious impacts on each of the subsequent
steps based on the propagation of the accuracy of the
collected data points. Also, the digitisation step requires
more time compared to the steps after it, since the next
steps are completed by a set of computer algorithms,
which is usually faster. Therefore, in order to get the
data points with high accuracy and fast speed, digitis-
ation techniques have attracted much interest from
researchers during the past few decades.
Effective digitisation can be achieved by employing
several different techniques. Each uses a physical mech-
anism to either directly or indirectly acquire the coordi-
nates of specific part features. The taxonomy of
currently available technologies is presented in Figure 3.
These technologies can be broadly classified into three
categories based on whether there is physical contact
164 Z. GENG AND B. BIDANDA
of the surface or volume of the object of interest: contact,
non-contact, and hybrid methods.
Contact methods
Considered as a more traditional method compared to
non-contact methods, contact-based methods have
been utilised for several decades. These methods
require mechanical contact between the interested sur-
faces and a measuring device, usually in the form of a
contact probe or stylus. Contact-based measurements
can usually obtain more accuracy and higher quality of
surface finish, but are more time-consuming.
Manual measurement
The contact methods can be traced back to manual
measurement ages that occurred around half a century
ago. Several key dimensions across the parts are ident-
ified by experienced workers and then can be used for
blueprint drawings. The instruments include calipers,
measuring gages, angle finders, etc. With the develop-
ment of computer-aided design systems, key points
from the measurement of a surface can be entered
into a CAD system, wherein curves and surfaces that
interpolate these points can be generated, followed by
the generation of a 3D CAD model. The manual measure-
ment process is flexible, since the workers can determine
the key points by experience. However, the disadvan-
tages are significant: the poor accuracy of measurement
because of subjectivity, the limitation of the form of
surface or object, and the tremendous amount of man-
hours required. This manual method is rarely used
today for a RE process, but might be helpful to generate
constraints in surface fitting steps.
Figure 4. Fishbone diagram of casual factors of CMM measuring performance.
Coordinate measuring machine (CMM)
Introduced as a machine that could inspect a part in
the early 1960s, the CMM is the first and still one of the
most popular equipment of RE. The CMM is a device
measuring spatial points on the surface of a workpiece
using a contact stylus and translating into a 3D Cartesian
coordinate system. The contact stylus is generally a
highly sensitive pressure sensing device that is triggered
by any contact with the part surfaces. Three issues of a
CMM that determine its measuring performance (i.e.
accuracy, flexibility, measurable workpiece dimension,
throughput of measuring process, and costs), are types
of configuration, control types, and fixture designs
(Figure 4).
CMM machines have been well researched in efforts
to improve their performance. Some researchers
develop CMM planning algorithms in order to avoid col-
lision of CMM probes (Albuquerque et al. 2000, Lin and
Chen 2001). ElKott and Veldhuis (2005) and Yu et al.
(2013) propose adaptive sampling methods to scan
free-form surfaces using CMM. However, most of the
inspection methods are CAD correlated. A trend of
CAD-free, automation inspection path planning of
CMM has emerged; this path planning first appeared in
the area of free-form surface inspection. Chiang and
Chen (1999) propose a surface skinning method, incor-
porating a software iterative procedure for RE of sculp-
tured surfaces. Li et al. (2013) and Li and Nomula
(2015) generate methods of both CAD-guided and
non-CAD-guided to increase the accuracy of CMM in
measuring external profiles of porous objects.
Numerical control (NC)-based machine
Because the price of CMM are prohibitive, researchers
and practitioners intended to find substitution that

could be modified into a scanning equipment. NC-based
machine was introduced in the 1940s and 1950s, which
was intended to mount existing tools on a programma-
ble motor for automated manufacturing. Using NC-
based machine mounted with stylus is a practical sol-
ution, since NC-based machines are widely used in the
industries and easily programmed. Besides of these,
NC-based machine is easily changed with current state-
of-the-art scanning techniques (Shen et al. 2000, Cheng
et al. 2007) and up-to-date path planning algorithms
(Milroy et al. 1995).
Non-contact methods
Compared to the probe or stylus to contact the surface,
non-contact methods do not have mechanical contact
with the part to be studied. Non-contact methods typi-
cally use a medium such as light, laser, sound, magnetic
fields, or X-rays, as the main tool for deducing surface
information. Non-contact can be further divided into
two subgroups – active and passive techniques.
Compare to contact method, non-contact techniques
require less time for scanning process; however, these
methods are limited in that hollow structures or small
features on the surface of transparent materials cannot
be measured.
Active systems
The active form methods operate by projecting energy
onto a part by recording the transmitted or reflected
energy and translating it into geometric information.
Triangulation. This is a well-established active technol-
ogy for accurate geometric data acquisition based on
Figure 5. Representation of the triangulation principle.
VIRTUAL AND PHYSICAL PROTOTYPING 165
the principle of triangulating a measurement point on
the part from a well-designed system including a
source and a detector. Both single light triangulators
and laser strips share the same underlying principles.
Figure 5 shows a typical system configuration. Points PL
and PC are the pin points of the exit of the laser source
and the entrance pupils of a camera, S′ is the point
reflected from point S of object. Also, the angle
between the points and the axes of rotary table is
known as α. Therefore, we have
dl
zS = , (1)
B′ S′ + l tan (u)
and
xS = zS tan (u), (2)
where zS and xS are the x and z coordinates of the point S
in 3D system, d is the distance between PL and PC, u is the
angle of between the laser beam and predefined z axis, l
is the distance between pupil and camera (Blais et al.
1988).
The scanning process generally starts from either the
bottom layer of the part and proceeds upwards to each
layer or from a vertical line layer and then proceeds
either right or left to each layer with user-defined inter-
vals. Therefore, when the scanning process is complete,
the data are a collection of location of points organised
with equal interval cross-sectional layers, which can be
used for further processing. Generally, laser scanning
technologies are able to produce accurate data repeata-
ble to less than 0.001 inch (Creehan and Bidanda 2006b).
Also, the laser scanner is the most common method used
in RE applications, because it is fast and robust relative to
other methods (Gálvez et al. 2012, Lu and Wang 2015).
166 Z. GENG AND B. BIDANDA
Structured light. Structured light-based systems share
the same active approach as mentioned above. Instead
of a single beam or strip of light, structured light involves
projecting patterns of light onto a surface of the part; the
geometric information of the surface of interest can be
generated through analysing the resulting patterns pro-
jected on the video camera. The projection of different
patterns in terms of accuracy and throughput time has
been extensively studied. Le Moigne and Waxman
(1984, 1985) use multi-resolution grid pattern light pro-
jected on the objects for robot vision. Morita et al.
(1988) proposed a pattern made from an M-array,
which is a 2D extension of a M-sequence, to correct
pattern disorders. Maruyama and Abe (1993) present a
method for acquiring range data by projecting multiple
slits with random cuts. Also, some researchers (Srinivasan
et al. 1984, Tang and Hung 1990) have explored the pro-
jection of fringe patterns, which are particularly suitable
to maximise the resolution of measurement with a faster
speed.
Shape-from-shadows. The shape-from-shadows method
is a variant of the structured light approach. Instead of
obtaining geometric information through analysing the
reflection of patterned light projected onto unknown
parts, the 3D model can be rebuilt by capturing and ana-
lysing the shadow of a predefined object projected onto
the target with moving light (Fanany and Kumazawa
2004, Yu and Chang 2005). Despite its low cost and
simple equipment benefits, this method is rarely used in
the RE field because of the low accuracy.
Shape-from-shading. Similar to the shape-from-
shadows technique, the shape-from-shading approach
also uses the shadow phenomena to obtain geometric
information. However, the shape-from-shading requires
directly projecting light onto the object of interest,
which will generate shading onto the background. The
shading on the target surface will change according to
the varying of the position of the light source. A
thorough review of algorithms able to extract the
shape information from this type of methods can be
found in the reference (Horn and Brooks 1989). Yet,
this approach has shortcomings in the accuracy
obtained, especially for a small scale of target and in
the presence of external factors that influence the reflec-
tance of surfaces (Wöhler and Hafezi 2005).
Medical imaging. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
and CT are utilised for acquisition of geometric infor-
mation for biomedical purposes. MRI is a versatile,
powerful, and sensitive tool that incorporates the
principles of nuclear magnetic resonance. This process
utilises absorption and emission of energy by atomic
nuclei in a surrounding magnetic field, to generate
thin-section images of any part of the body, like
organs, bones, and ligaments, from any angle and direc-
tion. The quality of image under MRI is closely related to
the strength of the magnetic field. However, due to the
nature of the magnetic field setting, measuring any met-
allic object is potentially inapplicable. On the other hand,
a CT scanner is another tool for viewing the internal
structure of the human body that does have the ability
to scan metallic subjects (Liu et al. 2016). The fundamen-
tal principle of CT is to send a thin X-ray beam at the
target from multiple angles measuring the varying
amounts of X-ray beams after attenuating by different
densities from the opposite side. Both the MRI and CT
can now acquire data with high accuracy and can solve
difficulties when measuring holes or internal structures
of the target; however, the cost of these imaging tech-
niques can be prohibitive.
Passive systems
Stereo scanning. The stereo scanning is the process of
acquiring geometric data of an object by integrating
the photographs concurrently captured by two or
more cameras from different perspectives. With the
same principle of triangulation, stereo scanning
requires no further equipment, e.g. specific light
sources, except for cameras, which give it advantages
such as simplicity and low cost. However, stereo scan-
ning often requires human participation or large com-
putational efforts to identify the common points
within the image pairs in order to reconstruct the 3D
model. A significant amount of research has been pub-
lished in the area of stereo scanning (Tippetts et al.
2016). Considerable advancements have enable the
development of new algorithms and the augmentation
of existing algorithms in order to produce more accu-
rate results and achieve real-time performance in
obtaining these results. However, because of the
nature of this method, the quality of the shape extrac-
tion depends heavily on the sharpness of the surface
texture, which is affected by surface reflectance.
Stereo scanning has significant applications in the
areas which do not require high-precision acquisition
data, like computer vision or robotics; its fast feature
detection is more important in motion planning or col-
lision avoidance.
Texture gradients. The main idea behind surface recon-
struction through texture gradients is based on two facts:
(1) the further away from an object one is, the smoother
its surface will appear to be and (2) the image of certain

texture elements (texels) relates to the surface orien-
tation (Szeliski 2010). Therefore, the distance of certain
texels from a known viewpoint can be estimated by
inspecting the perceived texture at that distance. This
method has simple, low cost equipment requirements.
However, it has a limited performance on accuracy and
precision.
Shape-from-focus. Shape-from-focus techniques are
based on using the focal properties of a lens to deter-
mine the depth and range information of the target
(Nayar and Nakagawa 1994). A lens can be employed
as a range finder through the ‘depth of field’ phenom-
enon where the image is blurred when it is located to
a distance proportional between the points on target
and the in-focus object plane. This technique has
evolved from a passive approach to an active scanning
technique in order to improve its resolution and accu-
racy. This method is still inadequate for commercial RE
systems due to its low-accuracy and non-uniform
spatial resolution.
Hybrid methods
Each of the methodologies detailed earlier has ‘pros and
cons’. For example, contact digitisers, e.g. though CMMs
are able to provide accuracy and reliable measurement
results, their data acquisition processes require a lot of
time due to inefficiently planning; these contact digiti-
sers also depend upon human intervention. Non-
contact digitisers, on the other hand, are capable of
medium to high-speed data generation and significant
time reduction; however, the level of accuracy is com-
paratively lower than that of contact ones. Hybrid
methods meet the increasing requirements of both fast
scanning speed and high measurement accuracy,
together with the flexibility and high level of automation
of the whole digitisation process. These methods which
incorporate two or more digitisation methods that
provide ‘smart’ path planning with high-speed and
high level of accuracy, are increasingly applied to RE
field.
Current research on hybrid methods of RE mainly
focus on sensor selection, scanning path planning, and
coordinate system unification. Methods, such as,
Bradley and Chan (2001), Carbone et al. (2001), Sładek
et al. (2011), and Li and Wei (2016), are proposed to inte-
grate non-contact scanning techniques onto a CMM; the
non-contact methods are used for path planning and
CMM is followed for accuracy data collection. Chan
et al. (2001) introduce a multi-sensor approach for
rapid digitisation by integrating a CCD camera for path
planning and a laser scanner for accurate data collection.
VIRTUAL AND PHYSICAL PROTOTYPING 167
Li et al. (2014) present a tactile-optical system where a
tactile probe was used to compensate the data from a
laser line scanner. Lu and Wang (2015) mount the
point laser probe next to CMM to scan next path and
provide path planning for the contact scanning probe.
Commercial systems today
RE systems, or more broadly, 3D scanning techniques,
have been used for decades in industrial and commer-
cial applications ranging from surveying construction
sites to measuring a machined part for redesign. Com-
panies, such as Nikon Metrology Inc., Mitutoyo Corpor-
ation, Creaform Inc., etc., have designed CMMs with an
accuracy and resolution that ranges from 0.05 to 5 µm.
However, as 3D printing (3DP) has become more
common with makers and designers, the desire to
capture 3D CAD data of the real objects and transform
them into printable models with higher flexibility in less
time has grown. Non-contact scanning systems have
gained market share because of high speed, affordable
price, and acceptable accuracy. Structured light and
laser triangulation are two major methods that are
used in commercial systems today, such as Artec’s
Space Spider and FARO’s FocusS laser scanner, respect-
ively. Overall, structured light systems have better resol-
ution and higher accuracy than the ones with laser
triangulation. Due to the smaller and lighter nature of
non-contact systems, handheld products are popular
in market and provide much user flexibility. These
include systems from 3D scanner by XYZprinting Inc.,
SenseTM 3D scanner by 3D Systems Inc., and even iSen-
seTM 3D scanner (which is made to attach to a tablet) by
3D Systems. Some high-end non-contact systems are
even able to capture the colour of an object, for
example, SCANIFY® by Fuel 3D Technologies Limited
can provide high-quality scans and capture true to life
colours. Non-contact methods also provide a higher
scanning speed than CMMs, and usually complete the
scanning task within a few minutes; yet, the precision
and resolution is around 0.01–1 mm, which is signifi-
cantly lower than a CMM. On the software side, RE soft-
wares, such as Geomagic® DesignTM X, Geomagic® for
SOLIDWORKS®, etc., are ready to use to convert 3D
scan data into high-quality feature based models for
further manipulation.
Interfacing RE with other manufacturing
processes
The real power and flexibility of RE systems lie in their
capability to be combined with other manufacturing pro-
cesses to reproduce the products through CAD/CAM
168 Z. GENG AND B. BIDANDA

platforms. The digitisation processes will result in a ‘raw’
data cloud has been acquired through a RE system;
however, this data cloud must be ‘massaged’, including
preprocessing and transforming into specific forms in
order to be used by computer platforms (Bidanda et al.
1991). At the beginning of the massaging process, the
raw data should be smoothed and outliers removed.
Then, the data cloud is then typically transformed into
specific format that a CAD system can identify. The
language of CAD is geometric-based. Broadly speaking,
three major modelling techniques are widely used:
wire-frame modelling, surface modelling, and solid mod-
elling (Xu 2009). Wire-frame, the most basic method and
first developed, is stored in a data file as a collection of
points, lines, and types of curves. This method, which
requires a low volume of data storage, was used for
data reduction for RE systems (Motavalli and Bidanda
1991); however, wire-frame modelling techniques
cannot fully satisfy the increasing demand for customisa-
ble, complex designs, and free-form objects. Further-
more, because RE includes digitisation of the surfaces
of the target object, surface modelling techniques,
which primarily consist of a set of faces, are more versa-
tile and flexible, with the ability to model the edges and
surfaces.
Multiple options for surface modelling from data
clouds exist, which is shown in Table 1. Polygonal
meshes offer the simplest option. The main idea for poly-
gonal meshes is to convert the discrete data clouds into
piecewise smooth, continuous models through small
patches. Polygonal meshes are important in computer
graphics and animations due to their simplicity and flexi-
bility, especially for free-form surfaces (Krishnamurthy
and Levoy 1996, An et al. 2016). However, small gaps
between surface patches exist due to missing scanned
data, especially when scanning a complex part, like
Table 1. Comparison between surface modelling techniques in
RE.
Modelling techniques Advantages Disadvantages
Polygonal meshes . Simple . Bulky storage
mathematical . Difficulties for
model redesign or
reengineering
. Pore existence
cavities, where it is impossible to acquire all parts of
scanned surfaces. Various hole-filling algorithms have
been developed and many of these can be found in
archival journals (Curless and Levoy 1996, Chui and Lai
2000, Liepa 2003, Jun 2005).
Another major option is curve and surface fitting of
the point cloud data. Chivate and Jablokow (1995)
provide a thorough but not up-to-date overview of
surface representations and fitting mechanisms. In
general, surface representations can be divided into
two categories: algebraic forms and parametric forms.
Algebraic forms assume that the target surface can be
represented by an implicit equation f (x, y, z) = 0 in
three-space or by a homogeneous polynomial equation
f (x, y, z, w) = 0 in a four-space (Boender 1991).
Under this representation, algorithms, such as least
squares fitting or least median of squares, deals with
computing the coefficients of the equation. However,
due to the global nature of algebraic function, any modi-
fication of the data set would cause refitting of the whole
surface.
Another type of surface/curve representation form is
the parametric form, including Bézier’s surface/curve, B-
spline surface/curve, and non-uniform rational basis
spline (NURBS) surface/curve. The reason this category
is called parametric form is that the surfaces or curves
are represented in terms of two parameters, u and v;
the main differences among the above three represen-
tations lie in the basic functions. Specifically, Bézier’s
surface/curve utilise Bernstein polynomials as its basis
function; B-spline surface/curve uses polynomials as its
basis function defined over a knot vector; and NURBS
surface/curve employ rational polynomials as its basis
function. Fitting data cloud into these three surface rep-
resentations has attracted a great deal of interest. (Ma
and Kruth 1998, Sarfraz 2006, Gálvez et al. 2007, 2012,
Ülker and İşler 2007, Gálvez and Iglesias 2016).
With the state-of-the-art surface fitting algorithms,
surface models generated from measured data can be
obtained. A surface model inside CAD platforms can be
rendered into a solid model; its versatility allows it to
be used with finite-element analysis, fluid flow analysis,
and NC part programming for CAM.

Curve and Algebraic . Efficient . Any modification of Dimensional tolerance issues

surface forms computation data implies refitting
fitting . Closure the whole surface As shown above, RE is considered as the first step of com-
properties puter-aided manufacturing and engineering and an
important design task. In addition, RE is also treated as
Parametric . Easy to . Extensive
forms modification computation an input to additive manufacturing (AM) or 3DP, since
. ‘Robust’ to the input for AM and 3DP is CAD files and Surface Tessel-
outliers
lation (STL) files, both of which are RE’s output. The
process of moving a physical part to a 3D printed part

helps to set up the process between RE and 3DP, and
provides the trend for the future manufacturing and
service industries. For example, in healthcare industry,
customised product, for example organs, stem cells,
and tissues, can be reverse engineered through bioprint-
ing techniques (Chua and Yeong 2014). However, toler-
ance design, without which the geometric design may
deteriorate product’s usefulness and functionality, must
be carefully observed throughout the whole process.
The consensus is that the manufacturing of the parts
whose dimension is exactly the same as the design is
impossible; thus, manufacturing two parts that are
exactly the same is not achievable. In our case, the final
bio-product should be within some certain geometric
and biological requirements in order to fit the patients’
needs.
The entire process, including design, manufacturing,
RE, and AM, is shown in Figure 6. For example, a
product whose size is A mm was designed for some
specific purpose that requires high precision with toler-
ance 2σ mm; therefore, the required output product
should be within A ± σ mm. After design and manufac-
turing, a manufacturing error is added to the initial
design A ± σM mm. In order to reproduce this product
without the original CAD file, an RE process is required
to gain the design information. Then after scanning,
data processing, and generating a CAD file, an RE error
is added to the model, which results in the measure of
A ± σM ± σRE mm. The CAD file is then used for AM.
After reproduction, an error of AM, σAM, is also added
to the final product, whose measure is A ± σM ± σRE ±
σAM mm. The product’s final measure is easily out of
the range of the design requirements A ± σ mm, which
makes the whole reproduction process and final
product not useful.
Because of the highly unpredictable error in each step
of the RE manufacturing process, the superposition error
Figure 6. Process flow for product reproduction with error superposition.
VIRTUAL AND PHYSICAL PROTOTYPING 169
occurs often and is not easy to solve. Therefore, process
controlling techniques should be investigated through-
out the entire process to make sure the superposition
error can be controlled under an appropriate tolerance
level. In order to obtain a better reproduction and a
more accurate representation, a more robust system
that includes tolerance stacking techniques may be
required to ensure the product is deliverable, reproduci-
ble, and feasible.
With the acceptance of variability in the manufactur-
ing process and in support of the design’s basic function-
ality and interchangeability for mass production,
tolerance design has become an essential part of
design and manufacturing. Generally, two ideas may
have the ability to overcome this problem. One of the
ideas is similar to initial design or redesign processes.
By analysing the assembly to which the part belongs
and the functionality of the part, a set of constraints
could be generated for tolerance design. However, this
method, which may be heavily dependent on the inter-
vention of RE expertise, may cause an increase of
throughput time and costs. Another idea is to derive
an approximation to the initial tolerance design accord-
ing to the features of the part. Jamshidi et al. (2006)
propose a method that analyses the surface finish and
texture to identify the original manufacturing processes
to help approximate dimensional and geometric toler-
ances. Kaisarlis et al. (2000) present the idea of a knowl-
edge-based system based on ISO, ANSI, and BS standards
with functional requirements. Another method requires
dimensional analysis on multiple samples of the same
product to make inference on the tolerance information.
The existence of only one product in a scenario, as well as
excessive time and high cost, makes this method a pro-
blematic one. Therefore, systematic ways to reverse
engineer the tolerance information of a general
product with theoretical support are urgently required
170 Z. GENG AND B. BIDANDA
Figure 7. Smart and ‘integrated’ 3D printer – 3D ‘copier’ – design.
in order to both reduce throughput time and improve
the level of the quality of final product produced
through RE processes.
Conclusion
A broad range of technologies that can be used to
develop RE for manufacturing purposes has been
described. Two main parts of state-of-the-art RE are
discussed: scanning/digitisation techniques and interfa-
cing techniques with other manufacturing processes.
Because both of the components are equally important
to the performance of a final CAD model generation,
integrated systems of different combinations should be
chosen based on specific circumstances. Also, these inte-
grated systems make it possible to reduce the product
design throughput time by going from a physical part
to a final deliverable. However, some bottlenecks, includ-
ing the inaccessibility of the bottom side, internal struc-
ture, or blind hole, still need further work in order to
coping with gaps in applicability and level of automation
for RE.
Further research that addresses the tolerance issues of
RE could increase the benefits of the usability and indus-
trial applicability of the final products. State-of-the-art RE
processes put focus on the extracting geometric infor-
mation from the physical model to reconstruct the CAD
model, but little research has been discussed about the
procedure of RE the tolerance information. When one
product is reverse engineered, the part, in most cases,
is only one sample from a distributed population,
where the variation is unavoidable. Traditionally, the
trade-off between production cost and level of function-
ality and assembly can be balanced by well-designed
computer-aided tolerancing (CAT) techniques; however,
this area has not received much attention especially as
applicable to RE.
Integrating with state-of-the-art 3DP techniques will
have a substantial impact on shorter life cycles for the
new products and will possibly provide for customer per-
sonalisation manufacturing. The next evolution in RE will
likely be related to artificial intelligence (AI) or ‘smart
systems’ in both hardware and software. On the hard-
ware side, automating scanner operations will make
scanning more accurate and shorten the time of scan-
ning. Development in the software arena could include
an integrated ‘automated process planner’. This
‘planner’ has been the Holy Grail in manufacturing for
decades and is quickly moving closer to reality. With
both of the above improvements, RE will eventually inte-
grate with other production systems, such as a 3DP
system, with little human intervention. A general idea
for a ‘3D copier’ is proposed in Figure 7, of which the
first generation was introduced to the market by some
companies, such as Blacksmith Genesis, AIO Robotics
Inc. This ‘copier’ would make part ‘copying’ a two-step
process, similar to a regular copier, where the original
product is first placed inside a work envelope and then
the geometry is quickly scanned. After removing the
part, the machine begins to re-create the said part. This
further enhances data exchange between scanning and
3D printer functions, enabling these new generation
machines to reverse engineer and reproduce a part
with minimal setup. Also, the idea can widen the
current definition of a RE system, which is integration
of 3D scanning and CAD reconstruction, into a thorough
manufacturing process with an additional function of
reproduction.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
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