Reverse Engineering The World Via 3D Scanning

Florida-based NeoMetrix Technologies has 20 years of reverse engineering experience. They have recently taken up 3D scanning to reverse engineer everyday objects. Using equipment such as a Konica Minolta Range 7 scanner, and Rapidform XOR (now Geomagic Design X) software to merge the scans, the team at NeoMetrix then transferred their files to Solidworks to render complex items into 3D files that can be sent to a 3D printer. They have successfully reverse engineered such objects as a can opener, a custom made guitar, and a flight simulator grip. Check out details on their operations in the full article: http://3dprint.com/34617/3d-scan-reverse-engineering/


Below is a look at a 3D rendering of a can opener:
http://3dprint.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/ca7.png

It's not something new, these trend has been around for a while. Typical reverse engineering is done when the manufacturer is no longer producing an item or it's nowhere to be found. Doing reverse engineering for the sake of pleasure will cost you money.

Typical price point to scan one physical object cost about 500$, quoted from Creaform, if that gives to anyone idea. Depending on the complexity of the object they may charge you more or less. Oh and if the object has a shiny or metal finish, ugh, no comment on that.

Quality control ... sure if the tolerances are at least 10 times bigger than precision (IF). Shape enveloppe ... a costly way to go.

But "reverse engineering".. no way. The shape has no meaning without the tolerances involved for an assembly.

It is possible to reverse-engineer working parts from scans, but it's not as simple as just making a scan. What the software does is enable the recovery of "design intent" and the creation of clean CAD geometry based on the scanned data. Once that's done, tolerances can be adjusted just like in any CAD file. It's not especially easy or cheap, but it can be done.

Andrew Werby
www.computersculpture.com
reseller of Geomagic Design X

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Originally Posted by awerby

It is possible to reverse-engineer working parts from scans, but it's not as simple as just making a scan. What the software does is enable the recovery of "design intent" and the creation of clean CAD geometry based on the scanned data. Once that's done, tolerances can be adjusted just like in any CAD file. It's not especially easy or cheap, but it can be done.

Andrew Werby
www.computersculpture.com
reseller of Geomagic Design X

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Agreed but the actual engineering part of "retro-engineering" is not made by the software.