Data reduction in integrated reverse engineering and rapid prototyping

In reverse engineering, a digitizer usually generates a large cloud of 3D points data, many of which are not necessary for subsequent applications. When a digitized part is to be manufactured by means of rapid prototyping machines, e.g. stereolithography apparatus (SLA) and selective laser sintering equipment (SLS), etc. there is no need to construct the CAD model of the digitized part. This will be described by the proposed novel method which can construct an STL file (the de facto file format for rapid prototyping machines) directly from digitized part data. In order to reduce storage space and increase computational efficiency for subsequent processes, e.g. slicing, data reduction is achieved based on two criteria: one is the desired percentage data reduction; the other is the maximum bounded error.