Rapid prototyping: Practical approach to enabling reverse engineering

It has been reported that Rapid Prototyping (RP) is one of the enablers of Reverse Engineering (RE). Two separate studies have been carried out to verify the degree of the activities of RP as an enabler of RE. These studies which, are both experimental and theoretical in nature, considered two different components that were reversed engineered using CMM, 3D-laser Scanner and ProEngineer CAD package for final model in Stereolithography system. This involves the redesigning of parts using the original component as a template to retrieve the dimensional information required to rebuild the component on a Computer Aided Design (CAD) based program before the alterations can be made to improve it. The main area of studies is concerned with the interlinking of the two processes stated above. More accurately the computer data transfer of the dimensions of the component straight from the CMM or laser scanning machine on to the CAD based program considered, ProEngineer was used for this application. This would produce the model directly from the data transfer without any necessary physical drawing onto ProEngineer. The model production is generated at a considerable speed at minimal cost to ensure the components suitability for its specific use, giving the designer a physical model of the part. The purpose of doing this is to find a way of transferring data from the CMM or Laser Scanner to the RP system without the use of any other software and to cut down on the time and cost of Product development cycle. In this study these have been achieved.