Direct integration of reverse engineering and rapid prototyping

Reverse engineering (RE) technology enables us to create CAD models of new or existing products by capturing surface data. Rapid prototyping (RP) is another emerging technology that allows us to promptly fabricate the physical prototype of a mew product using a layered manufacturing technique. In this research, a new method that creates a direct link: between these two technologies, is proposed. In RE, an enormous amount of point data is gathered during data acquisition. This leads to a huge file size that requires a large execution time. Surface modeling using these point data is time-consuming and requires expert modeling skills. Some researchers suggested creating an STL file directly from the point cloud data to avoid surface modeling tasks. The STL file, howe:ver, has many drawbacks. In this research, algorithms that greatly reduce point cloud data are developed, and thereby, the data file sizes are decreased considerably. The efficiency of the algorithms is demonstrated by comparing them with existing ones. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.