The New Jersey Institute of Technology's
Electronic Theses & Dissertations Project

Title:	Reverse engineering : an evaluation of contact technology and application in manufacturing systems
Author:	Jadhav, Shailesh V.
View Online:	njit-etd1993-156 (x, 58 pages ~ 2.6 MB pdf)
Department:	Manufacturing Engineering Division
Degree:	Master of Science
Program:	Manufacturing Engineering
Document Type:	Thesis
Advisory Committee:	Sodhi, R. S. (Committee chair) Kotefski, Steve (Committee member) Levy, Nouri (Committee member)
Date:	1993-01
Keywords:	CAD/CAM systems
Availability:	Unrestricted
Abstract:	There are many instances where one-of-a-kind parts, such as prototypes or custom-built parts, need to be reproduced. When a Computer Aided Design (CAD) of an existing part is not available, reverse engineering is involved in recreation of such part. Currently, geometric measurements from the surface of a prototype are extracted manually and sent to a CAD system. It is typically time consuming, tedious, and potentially a source of error. This study outlines a methodology, for the development of a CAD model, rapid prototype, and subsequently manufacturing of the part. The method developed uses a contact technique to extract 2-D or 3-D data from the surface of parts using a coordinate measurement machine. Procedures for processing the data into a polygon mesh representation and orthographic projections are detailed. CAD solid modelling to Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM), which is an important step in manufacturing industries are described by CNC code generations and use of ethernet to send the machine code file to the CNC machine tool on the shopfloor.