Reverse Engineering and CAD Modeling

Abstract

In mechanical engineering, the development of a product from conceptual design to final production encompasses initial product description, mock ups for evaluation of alternative designs, product modeling, prototyping and tooling. This is an iterative process involving many refinements. The critical path of the product development cycle has many potential bottlenecks, which can slow down the whole process. One such bottleneck is a step called reverse engineering (RE). RE continues to be widely used in the development of products having freeform geometry. Since it involves creating a CAD model from a physical model, it is the inverse of the normal process of producing a part from a CAD model.