The Effect of Surface Parameters to the Performance of Reverse Engineering Process

¹ Faculty of Engineering Technology, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, 86400 Parit Raja, Batu Pahat, Johor, Malaysia
² Centre for Diploma Studies, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, 86400 Parit Raja, Batu Pahat, Johor, Malaysia
³ Faculty of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, 86400 Parit Raja, Batu Pahat, Johor, Malaysia

^* Corresponding author: azle@uthm.edu.my

Abstract

Reverse engineering (RE) process is capable of producing CAD models from the existing part without the need of a blueprints or CAD drawing. One of the method to implement RE is via 3D scanning and the main goal is to produce CAD files that have the highest accuracy possible when compared to the actual parts. Any effort to improve the 3D scanning process should be encouraged because it will save a lot of time and expenses. As a result, this research tends to investigate the effects of surface parameters (Percentage of triangles and Grids resolution) to the performance of RE. Design of Experiments (DOE) method was used and the responses are measured in terms of File size and Error percentage. From the results, it is very interesting to note that the percentage of triangles does not have a significant effect to the file size but plays a major role in minimizing the dimension error. The grids resolution has the significant effects to the file size and error percentage. It can also be concluded that in order to get the best RE performance, the percentage of triangles and file size should be set to maximum. This will ensure that the generated CAD files will have the highest accuracy and from here, high quality products can be made from the RE process.