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PNNL's Reverse Engineering System

Description: 3D digitizing systems, such as the one shown above, are used for the reverse engineering of mechanical parts and organic shapes. The Reverse Engineering System was built by PNNL in 1996 to create CAD drawings directly from existing structural components, parts of machinery, or other devices.

The Reverse Engineering System consists of a robot, a base (holding four parts to be measured) with two translational degrees of freedom, a laser distance-measuring module, and two cameras. The laser measuring system and the cameras are mounted on the robot, and the robot has its own integral lighting, making it independent of local light levels. One camera has a wide angle lens to achieve a good overall view, and the other camera has a zoom lens to get a detailed view of the area to be measured.

The robot is controlled from a Macintosh computer with external I/O ports. McRail is the programming environment and image analysis software. Although it is largely automated, this system still requires user interaction. The user must define the regions of interest and specify their properties. In addition, a user must place measuring points for every region of interest to enable the program to create the height information. The data can then be characterized and exported as an IGES file, which can be easily imported into a CAD program as a drawing.

Point of Contact: Timothy Stewart, (509) 375-2672