Automatic reverse engineering based on reconstructing measurement data in 3D-lattice

Reverse engineering systems are used to construct mathematical models of physical models such as clay model based on measurement data. In this study, we proposed a reverse engineering method which can construct high quality surface data automatically. This method consists of the following steps; The first globally and regionally smooths measured data based on the target shape by fitting quadric surface to measurement data. The second defines quadric surfaces and converts measurement points into 3D lattice points to obtain uniform measurement data density. As the positions of measurement data are converted from coordinate values into 3D lattice points, it is easier to find neighboring points and clarify neighboring relations between surfaces. The third acquires segment measurement data based on maximum curvatures and normals at each point. The last defines NURBS surfaces for each segment using the least square method to average positional errors. In order to validate the effectiveness of the proposed method, we developed a reverse engineering system and constructed mathematical models through basic experiments using clay car model measurement data.