Reverse Engineering Services

What is Reverse Engineering?

Reverse Engineering refers to the process of creating a descriptive data set from a physical object . It is simply the quickest and most economical method for transferring 3d data into any computer system.

It has developed over the last 10 to 15 years due to the emergence of three dimensional digitizing devices such as the ATOS from GOM mbh of Germany that enable the form of physical objects to be captured easily. Also due to the parallel development of powerful reverse engineering software such as RapidForm from Inus Technology of Korea that allows the data produced to be efficiently manipulated into a useful form.

What technologies are available?

There are two parts in any reverse engineering application:

• Scanning and
• Data Manipulation

Common to all scanning systems is the production of a three dimensional description of the physical object in 3d space called point cloud. Point cloud typically defines numerous points on the surface of the object in terms of x, y and z coordinates. At each x,y,z coordinate in the data there is a corresponding physical point on the surface of the original object.

The sophistication of scanning systems such as the ATOS means there is usually an abundance of information in the point cloud collected .

To turn the data into a form that can be used downstream by CAD/CAM or Rapid Prototyping software a Reverse Engineering software such as RapidForm is used. This software allows the user to edit the point cloud data, create meshes and surfaces and translate it into useful formats recognizable by these programs.

What is involved in Reverse Engineering?

Step 1. The physical part is scanned using a digital scanner such as the ATOS optical scanner to acquire the surface topography.

Step 2. The point cloud set is converted to a polygonized data set, consisting of thousands of tiny facets. This can be done within the ATOS system or exported to a package such as Rapidform that allows the polygons to be manipulated to improve the finish or to add/ remove existing features.

Step 3. Finally within a package such as RapidForm, NURBS(non Uniform Rational B Splines) surfaces are added to the polygonized model.

This results in a watertight surface file. The geometry can then be exported to any CAD/CAM and rapid prototyping software, or it can also be converted directly to a parametric solid for use downstream.

How long does the process typically take?

Usually the shortest part of any RE task is the scanning or data collection. While there are exceptions, scanning might only require a few hours.

On the other hand using conventional CAD programs, manipulating the data has been quite time consuming and labor intensive. Sometimes requiring many days even up to several weeks to complete the task.

To this end intuitive Reverse Engineering software packages such as Rapidform have been developed specifically to deal intelligently and efficiently with large scan data sets and expedite the transformation from measurement data to useable surface models, mesh models or even 2d and three dimensional reports.

Utilizing software packages such as Rapidform, Scan-Xpress has the ability to rapidly model complex geometry in hours while maintaining the required accuracy's.

How can Scan-Xpress help?

Firstly, having the right tools to create the measurement data and then secondly to convert it into information useful for downstream applications can make all the difference to the success of a project.

Scan-Xpress has state of the art technology at its disposal and years of specialized experience in the industry.

The potential of this exciting process can be realized within your organization by contacting Scan-Xpress and speaking with one of our helpful and skilled representatives.

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