Industrial Reproduction Of Objects With Freeform Surfaces Using Reverse Engineering Process

Parts with freeform surfaces used in the design and the manufacture of molds, etc. are machined on multiaxis CNC machines from their models which can be obtained using Forward Engineering or Reverse Engineering. If surfaces shapes are of medium complexity, Forward Engineering is appropriate. Reverse Engineering is adopted when surfaces shapes are of high complexity or their CAD models are unavailable. This process reduces the product development cycle and costs. It consists in reconstructing object CAD model from its 3D clouds of points. In this paper, an experimental approach is adopted for the industrial duplication of objects with free-form surfaces from 3D point clouds acquired using a Coordinate Measuring Machine—CMM—equipped with Laser Scanner. The conducted analysis highlighted that the reconstruction of the CAD model with a good accuracy depends on the clouds of point’s density and particularly in zones of high curvature variations. Consequently, the analysis of object surfaces to duplicate is a critical operation before scanning. In the same time, clouds of points must have optimal densities to facilitate their treatment and to minimize processing times. To validate the generated CAD, variances spectral analysis between it and original cloud of points must be done.