Re: Reverse Engineering

From: Ashwin Hattiangadi (ashwin@mme.wsu.edu)
Date: Thu Aug 26 1999 - 22:53:01 EEST


Dear list and John,

    I am a grad. student at Washington State Univ. During my last semester, for one
of the course projects I developed a tool which interfaces Virtual Reality with
Rapid Prototyping. My objective was to create a link between the two upcoming
technologies,
virtual manuf. and layered manf. What basically the tool did was to trace points in
space and form a nurbs surface. The points in space or over any contour was traced
my movement of the sensors used in VR. I did some initial testing of the program at
the virtual design and assemble environment (VADE) at WSU and could trace and plot
different surfaces and contours such as profile surface of a cushion, convex,
concave surfaces, combined etc. I worked further to incorporate the development of
.stl files with the surface normals, tesselations etc. So this concept tool may be
a very handy tool in reverse engg. applications, since virtual manufacturing is
probably being heavily researched to be commercialised. And RP already has found its
place in most product development and manuf. industries. And it is very fast too,
just depends on the computational resources available.

    Also another reverse engg. tool developed by our lab was by a graduate student
Jon Christensen. More details can be found in ,
Jon Christensen and Amit Bandyopadhyay, " Reverse Engineering of Clear Solids Using
Refractive Index Matching" Rapid Prototyping Journal, Accepted for publication, July
1999.

Regards,
Ashwin Hattiangadi

John Makuch wrote:

> Firstly a belated thanks to all who replied to my initial enquiry (below) with
> factual as well as humourous info.
>
> My next question is:
>
> How effective is Reverse Engineering in a design process?
>
> We are considering the purchase of a Co-Ordinate Measuring Machine which will,
> largely, be at the disposal of New Product Develpoment. The use of Reverse
> Engineering is the main reason for the purchase. Whilst we understand the
> principles involved we are not wholly convinced as to the benefits this
> technique will bring and are therefore unsure as to whether to invest in a CMM,
> or not.
>
> Is there anyone out there who could advise as to how the process benefits their
> particular business, or offer good or bad experiences. In fact any information
> would be appreciated.
>
> Thanks, once again in anticipation
>
> John.
>
> ---------------------- Forwarded by John Makuch/Caradon Mira Limited/CARADON on
> 26/08/99 09:10 ---------------------------
>
> John Makuch
> 11/08/99 13:37
>
> To: rp-ml@bart.lpt.fi
> cc:
> Subject: General Info Need
>
> Does anyone have any statistics as to how much time and money can be saved by
> submitting SL, SLS etc Models to toolmakers for evaluation early in tool design,
> manufacture process.
>
> Thanks in anticipation
>
> John.
>
> For more information about the rp-ml, see http://ltk.hut.fi/rp-ml/



For more information about the rp-ml, see http://ltk.hut.fi/rp-ml/



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