Reverse engineering of mechanical parts requires extraction of information about an instance of a particular part sufficient to replicate the part using appropriate fabrication techniques. This is important in a wide variety of manufacturing situations, since usable CAD models are often unavailable or unusable for parts which must be duplicated or modified. Image understanding techniques applied to range data acquired using non-contact, three-dimensional position digitizers have the potential for significantly aiding the process. Serious challenges must be overcome, however, if sufficient accuracy is to be obtained and if models produced from sensed data are truly useful for manufacturing operations. This paper describes a prototype of a reverse engineering system which uses geometric representations natural to the manufacturing process. The system is interactive, which improves performance and allows for human entry of information that cannot be acquired from sensed data alone.
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