Powershape Reverse Engineering

[Elvisa Schimke]

Sowhat is reverse engineering? It is the ability to look at a finished product and deduce how it operates through various means. There are many reasons to do this; repairing an unfamiliar product or understanding how something operates. Whereas the process has previously been potentially dangerous to the product, advanced digital design solutions like those created by Autodesk can help mitigate risks. And there is good reason to work to mitigate those risks. With older technology that may not have any sort of surviving technical design, being able to create new parts is a very real issue.

After the image is uploaded, design professionals can create and customize their mills to best use the data in the creation of the machine, and Alvarez adds that FeatureCAM supports 5 Axis-Milling. Some of the customizable tool path options that Alvarez specifically noted include the ability to set custom staging, selecting the hardness of the material being milled, and the speed that the mill itself operates.

The result of these collaborative Autodesk solutions are two, highly customizable design softwares that work in tandem to create the most accurate model and product possible. When dealing with the problems inherent to reverse engineering a product or a piece of a machine, it is this level of customization that can make the difference between a useless part and the perfect fit.

As Autodesk solutions continue to evolve and embrace the power of more advanced technologies, it is not unreasonable to expect more powerful tools and innovations like Powershape and FeatureCAM to arrive and help make design a little bit easier.

Kevin Tierney is a writer for GovDesignHub and several other websites focused on advanced manufacturing, design technology, cybersecurity, and a variety of topics related to defense. Kevin brings to the team his unique perspective and his passion for understanding the next big thing in design technology.

PowerSHAPE Pro provides the most comprehensive range of design techniques available in a single CAD program, streamlining any product-development process that requires both reverse engineering and CAD functionality.

The latest version includes a new split-screen alignment option that makes it quicker and easier to combine multiple 3D scans from most scanning devices. The new method also allows more accurate snapping of alignment points, giving greater accuracy in the resulting single CAD model.

PowerSHAPE Pro can be used to take cross-sections through the scan data to generate wireframe for the development of surface models. The wireframe can be simplified automatically into lines and arcs, providing a more precise geometry for the re-engineering of the model.

Another new option is the ability to morph a complete solid or surface model to a mesh. Morphing can be used to update a nominal CAD model to match the part as it is made in reality or to modify the surfaces of the tool.

Upgrades to the Smart Feature Selector makes analysis of models much easier by displaying the type and parameters of each feature interactively as the cursor is moved around the model. In addition, the ability to select and edit multiple similar features has been extended to allow any number of items of the same type to be edited in a single operation.

Additional enhancements have also been made to the tools for the creation and editing of curves. The Composite Curve tool has been more efficient so that it needs fewer clicks to create the curve and the Re-point dialog now displays the deviation between the original curve and the new one. This makes it even easier to create high-quality, smooth surfaces when re-engineering scan data or when remodelling an existing design for manufacturing.

Hi guys,

We will machining an eagle to gift a director who is returning to Germany.

I already have the 3d model, however, it is in stl. I have sometimes used stl models on the Powermill and it is extremely labor intensive.

Question: Any "magic solution" for fast conversion of stl mesh to surfaces? Something that respects a tolerance and creates surfaces?

Note 1: Traditional reverse engineering is not feasible in this case due to long modeling time.

Note 2: The stl model is sealed and with a very good quality.

There is no simple solution to convert a triangle model into surfaces while keeping the area smooth. There is a cover to surface tool but the result will likely look the exact same as the triangle model.

You could use PowerShape to reverse engineer the model and rebuild it using surfaces. PowerShape is very good with this but with an organic model like this, it can take a very long time even when are skilled with the reverse engineer tools.

A mining industry manufacturer with locations in many countries specializes in the production of spare parts for material handling. These parts are associated with mining vehicle spares, as well as very large mixing machines. Due to the use of all kinds of rock, these working materials suffer and need to be replaced at regular intervals. The manufacturer saw an opportunity to reduce their time to produce spares by using optical scanning and reverse engineering.

The extraction of mining materials is a very abrasive and dirty process. This leads to a high wear rate of the components used in vehicles and machines. As a result, the mining industry needs to constantly replace parts and procure spare parts. This can be a costly and time-consuming process. If a spare part is not available, any downtime can have a significant financial impact on the company and projects.

For one manufacturer, the process of creating spare parts previously required several different applications. Although this process was successful, it was time and work-intensive and required extensive user training. Switching between the different applications caused problems with data transfer during export and import, which further slowed down the creation of spare parts. The use of different software providers is costly and time-consuming in terms of procurement, installation, and licensing.

Delcam has added a series of enhancements to its PowerSHAPE Pro software for modelling and reverse engineering that will help users to complete complex designs more quickly and more easily. In addition, a combination of new, more efficient, code and the extension of multi-threaded calculations to many commonly-used tasks will make the software significantly faster than any previous version.

By offering a combination of solid, surface and direct modelling, together with reverse engineering, PowerSHAPE Pro provides the most comprehensive range of design techniques available in a single CAD program. Having all the different technologies in the same package reduces the need to transfer data between multiple programs and so streamlines any modelling-for-manufacture projects that require both reverse-engineering and CAD functionality.

The first enhancement in the 2016 release allows groups of features to be copied between two solids in a single operation. While the features do not need to be of the same type, the most common application is expected to be in copying patterns of holes with a single click from one solid to another, for example from one mould plate to any other plate in the mould stack.

Another new option to save modelling time is the ability to edit the axis direction of any number of surface or solid primitives simultaneously. Similarly, the axis direction of a group of primitives that are not aligned can be brought into alignment in one operation. PowerSHAPE Pro already had the ability to edit simultaneously the dimensions of groups of primitives.

For customers using PowerSHAPE Pro to capture data for reverse engineering, the software can connect directly to most scanning hardware to capture and display scan data in real time. In the 2016 release, it has been made easier to switch between measuring modes when using devices that offer data collection by both laser scanning and point probing.

Reverse engineering has been made easier for prismatic parts, with the new ability to identify planes, cylinders, cones and other primitives, or to create wireframe arcs and lines, directly from probed points. This approach can often be more accurate than using scan data to create prismatic areas of a model.

The ability to replace regions of complex, free-form geometry with a single, shrink-wrap surface was introduced in PowerSHAPE Pro 2014 R2. In the new release, it has been made easier to re-orient such surfaces interactively and so place them in the most appropriate surface alignment.

In addition to these new options, a wide range of speed improvements has been made to the core modelling functions. Specific items affected include opening and displaying models in both wireframe and shaded views, displaying any single layer that had previously been drawn, projecting curves onto multiple surfaces, replaying complex solid history trees, selecting solid features, either graphically or using the history tree, and selecting multiple faces of a solid.

ANTech Media Solutions is a new age digital media company spread across the dimensions of digital media, creative solutions, events and more. It has three offices in India (Mumbai, Pune and Bangalore) with the headoffice in Mumbai. The company intends to provide its readers easy access to the latest happenings in the manufacturing industry. With this aim, ANTech Media Solutions started operations in January 2014 under the flagship brand www.mfgtechupdate.com, the most frequented machine tool related news and information site in India.

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