Reverse engineering of mechanical parts: A template-based approach. Issue 2 (14th November 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Buonamici, Francesco; Carfagni, Monica; Furferi, Rocco; Governi, Lapo; Lapini, Alessandro; Volpe, Yary
• Is Part Of: Journal of computational design and engineering. Volume 5:Issue 2(2018)
• Page Start: 145
• Page End: 159
• Publication Date: 2017-11-14
• Subjects: Reverse engineering -- CAD reconstruction -- CAD template -- 3D mesh -- Constrained fitting -- Particle Swarm Optimization; Engineering -- Data processing -- Periodicals; Computer-aided design -- Periodicals; Computer-aided design; Engineering -- Data processing; Electronic journals; Electronic journals; Periodicals; 620.0042
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jcde.2017.11.009
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2288-4300

Abstract

Graphical abstract: Abstract: Template-Based reverse engineering approaches represent a relatively poorly explored strategy in the field of CAD reconstruction from polygonal models. Inspired by recent works suggesting the possibility/opportunity of exploiting a parametric description (i.e. CAD template) of the object to be reconstructed in order to retrieve a meaningful digital representation, a novel reverse engineering approach for the reconstruction of CAD models starting from 3D mesh data is proposed. The reconstruction process is performed relying on a CAD template, whose feature tree and geometric constraints are defined according to the a priori information on the physical object. The CAD template is fitted upon the mesh data, optimizing its dimensional parameters and positioning/orientation by means of a particle swarm optimization algorithm. As a result, a parametric CAD model that perfectly fulfils the imposed geometric relations is produced and a feature tree, defining an associative modelling history, is available to the reverse engineer. The proposed implementation exploits a cooperation between a CAD software package (Siemens NX) and a numerical software environment (MATLAB). Five reconstruction tests, covering both synthetic and real-scanned mesh data, are presented and discussed in the manuscript; the results are finally compared with models generated by state of the art reverse engineering software and key aspects to be addressed in future work are hinted at.