A rather counter intuitive title for a blog, but as I have often heard ‘one has to retreat to advance’ ! Reverse engineering in essence is the design process in reverse.
The need for reverse engineering arises when one has a legacy product one would like to reproduce or manufacture but no design drawings or information exist. You work backwards through the design process to arrive at the specification. The resulting technical data can be used to replicate the product in CAD.
Design information is collected by various 3D measuring systems or combinations thereof including: coordinate measuring machines, laser scanners, tomography scanners, 3D structured light scanners, time of flight and photogrammetry, and lastly digital calipers & micrometers.
Scanners produce a point cloud data file which is converted to a .stl file which is further converted to a 3D CAD model that can also be redesigned or optimised. The data from the final CAD file is then used to produce the part.
Although in engineering we seem to be in reverse we are in fact advancing !
Hope you have a good month
All the best
Mike
Quotation corner:
“Genius is one percent inspiration, and ninety-nine percent perspiration.”
Thomas Edison
“Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.”
Saint Francis of Assisi
ps If you have enjoyed the blog please forward to those who might be interested, many thanks in advance, Mike
