Reverse engineering modelling of free-form surfaces from point clouds subject to boundary conditions

摘要

In product design, a CAD model often needs to be constructed from a physical part. This process iscalled reverse engineering and is performed through dimensional digitising and CAD modelling. Thedimensional digitising results in a cloud of points, which are input for the CAD modelling of surfacescorresponding to the object's features. Consistent with these features, some of the modelled surfacesneed to join with positional, tangential or curvature continuity. This paper reports on the incorporationof these geometric boundary conditions in the CAD modelling of free-form surfaces from a cloud ofpoints with non-uniform rational B-splines (NURBS). The described methods are illustrated withsome practical, industrial examples and some alternative solutions are briefly described.