Chapter 3

Reverse Engineering
 Definition: Reverse Engineering
 Reverse engineering is opposite to forward engineering.

 Works with existing product to create CAD model and modify or reproduce
the design aspect of the product.

 Can also be defined as duplicating an existing product by capturing its

physical dimensions.

 Reverse engineering is also defined as the process of obtaining a geometric

CAD model from 3-D points acquired by scanning/digitizing existing
parts/products.

 Reverse engineering helps in redesigning a component for better

maintainability and also to reproduce a system without access to its design
documents.
Introduction
 Companies are exploring
ways to reduce lead times for
new product development.

 Reverse engineering is now

considered among the
technologies that provide
business benefits in
shortening the product
development cycle.

 Reverse engineering allows

the possibilities of closing
the loop between what is
“designed” and “ actually
manufactured”.
 What is Reverse Engineering ?
Engineering is the process of designing, manufacturing,
assembling and maintaining products &
systems.

 Forward engineering : is the traditional process of moving

from logical designs to the manufactured and assembled
systems. In some situations, may be product are available
without any technical details e.g. drawing, bills of material
or without engineering data.

 Reverse engineering : process of duplicating an existing

part, subassembly, or product, without drawings,
documentation is known as reverse engineering.
 Reverse Engineering a Solution
 As products become more organic in shape designing in CAD
becomes more challenging without any guarantee that the CAD
design will replicate the sculpted model exactly.

 Reverse engineering can be considered as an optimal solution to

the above problem.

 The physical model is the source of information for the CAD in

the reverse engineering.

 Reverse engineering also helps in compressing the product

development lead time.
 The process is also referred as physical to digital process.

 Example: injection molding companies explore ways to reduce the design

development time of tool and die.

 Reverse engineering helps in transferring a physical product or clay mock

up in digital form. Digital form can be easily remodeled and exported for
rapid prototyping or rapid manufacturing.
 Why Use Reverse Engineering ?
 The original manufacturer no longer exists, but a customer
needs the product, e.g. , aircraft spares required typically after
an aircraft has been in service for several years.

 The original manufacturer of a product no longer produces the

product, e.g. , the original product has become obsolete.

 The original product design documentation has been lost or

never existed.

 Creating data to refurbish or manufacture a part for which there

are no CAD data, or for which the data have become obsolete or
lost.

 Inspection and/or Quality Control–Comparing a fabricated part

to its CAD description or to a standard item.
Cont……
 Some bad features of a product need to be eliminated e.g. ,
excessive wear might indicate where a product should be
improved.

 Strengthening the good features of a product based on long-term

usage.

 Analyzing the good and bad features of competitors’ products.

 Exploring new avenues to improve product performance and

features.

 Creating 3-D data from a model or sculpture for animation in

games and movies.
Cont……
 Creating 3-D data from an individual, model or sculpture to
create, scale, or reproduce artwork.

 Architectural and construction documentation and

measurement.

 Fitting clothing or footwear to individuals and determining the

anthropometry of a population.

 Generating data to create dental or surgical prosthetics, tissue

engineered body parts, or for surgical planning.

 Documentation and reproduction.

Majors Steps in R.E.
Reverse Engineering: The Generic
Process
R.E. is a 3 phase process

i. Scanning

i. Point processing

i. Application specific geometric

model development
Data Acquisition Techniques
Contact Scanner
 Contact probes automatically follow
contours of a physical surface.

 Probe devices are based on CMM

technologies, tolerance range 0.01-0.02mm

 Speed of scanning is function of size of

part, generally slow for large parts.

 Tactile device probes must deflect to

register a point, a degree of contact
pressure is required.

 Restrictions with contact pressure limits

the use of this technology for soft
materials.
Non Contact Scanners
 Based on lasers, optics and charge couple
devise sensors.

 Tolerance limit in the range of ± 0.025 to

0.2mm.

 Problem in scanning surface parallel to axis of

laser.

 Shiny surfaces needs to be treated with fine

powder before scanning.

 Employed when the accuracy of the

information generated is secondary to the
speed.

 Output of scanning phase id point cloud data.

Laser Triangulation
 Location & angles between light
source & photo sensing devices to
configure position coordinates.

 Light is focused at a predefined

angle on the surface.

 Photosensitive device captures the

reflected light & using geometric
triangulation the coordinates of
surface is recorded.

 Light source and photosensitive

device is normally mounted on
moving platform to enable multiple
scans.

 Accuracy of scan depends on the

resolution of the photosensitive
device & the distance between the
surface & scanner.
Interferometry

 Measure the coordinates of any

point/ feature in terms of
wavelengths using interference
patterns.

 Considered as very accurate, since

light has a wavelength in the order
of nanometers, while R.E.
applications are in the range of cm
to m.

 Generally, a monochromatic beam

of light is employed both to probe
the object and for a reference
beam for comparing with the
reflected light.
Structured Lighting

 A popular method is shadow

Moire, where an interference
pattern is projected onto a surface
producing lighted contour lines.

 These contour lines are captured

in an image and is analyzed to
determine the distances between
the lines.

 Distance between interference

lines is proportional to the height
of the surface at the point of
interest & coordinates of surface
points can be deduced.
 Stereo Image Analysis
 Relative locations of landmarks in multiple images are related to
position coordinates of points of interest.

 Method is similar structured lighting method.

 Image frames are analyzed to determine coordinate data.

 Analysis does not rely on projected patterns, but, stereo pairs are used
to infer information to determine coordinates.

 Referred as passive method, as no structured light is employed.

 Correlation of image pairs & landmarks with the help of images is

considered as a complex procedure hence active methods have
preference.
 Other Methods
ACOUSTIC

 Sound is reflected from a surface.

 Essentially the same as time of flight
 Distance between surface & source is measured with known speed of
sound.
MAGNETIC FIELD

 Involves sensing the strength of magnetic field source.

 Magnetic touch probes are employed of sensing the location and
orientation of a stylus within the field.

HYBRID

 Combination of contact & non-contact systems.

Non Contact Scanners: Advantages
 No physical contact.

 Fast digitizing of substantial volumes.

 Good accuracy and resolution for common applications.

 Ability to detect colors.

 Ability to scan highly detailed objects, where mechanical

touch probes may be too large to accomplish the task.
Point Processing Phase
 Importing the point cloud data,
reducing the noise in the
collected data & also reducing #
of points.

 Tasks were performed using a

range of filters.

 Also allows to merge multiple

scan data sets.

 Good datum planning for

multiple scanning will reduce
the effort required in the point
processing and avoid errors
from merging multiple scan
data.

 Output is a clean, merged point

cloud data set.
 Application Geometric Model
Development Phase
 Generation of CAD models from
point data is probably the most
Triangulated surface complex activity.
Point cloud
 Surface fitting algorithms are
required to create surface to
represent 3D information
described within the point
cloud data set.

 Most CAD systems are not

capable to display and process
large amount of point data, as a
result discrete software
packages are required for point
processing.
Reverse Engineering: Applications
 Ski binding  Frisbee
 Aluminum can
 Water gun
 Wind-up toy robot
 Lighter
 Disposable camera
 Match  Stapler
 Bicycle light system  Climbing rope

 Audio speakers  Coffee maker

 Thermos
 Shock absorber
 Aluminum Can : Procedure
i. Measured dimensions

ii. weight

iii. flow

iv. rates (wide mouth, narrow mouth),

v. force (required to open)

vi. load (to deform and to explode).

vii. The deformation force defines the critical axial buckling load.
Aluminum Can : Results/Conclusion

 Requires 550 to 600 pounds to deform.

 Requires 725 to 790 pounds to explode.

 Wide mouth takes 8.3 seconds to empty.

 Narrow mouth takes 13.6 seconds to empty.

 Ease of recycling is a big advantage.

 617 cans can be stacked high without damaging the bottom

can. This is important for storage and shipping.
 The Toaster : Procedure
i. Dissected object.

i. measured dimensions.

i. Measured temperature and time at each setting.

i. Measured electrical resistance.

The Toaster : Results/Conclusion
 The time for toasting ranges with settings from 20 to
34 seconds, if the toaster is cooled between tests.

 The time for toasting ranges with settings from 4.7

to 11.7 seconds, if the toaster is not cooled between
tests. Hence, for a quick response, let the toaster go
through a heat cycle before initially toasting.

 The toast compartments taper in width from top to

bottom. The team theorized that this permits
smaller, thicker items to be toasted without falling to
the bottom of the toaster.