Reverse engineering of propeller

The combination of several software products is increasingly used by engineers for constructing mathematical models. How does it work? Here we will tell you about it using the case study of one of the companies designing unmanned aerial vehicles. The equipment employed in a wide range of applications, namely in geodesy, mining, agriculture, construction, monitoring of high-rise buildings. The cases of using UAV for aerial photography or even computer-managed delivery are also fairly common.

Initially, the developer got the task to design the new model of the propeller with certain characteristics for UAV. But later, in order to save time, it was decided to copy a similar propeller for the further refinement and improvement of the product characteristics. The contractor was the company DE-ENGINEERING which provides 3D services, reverse engineering and design.

To avoid starting from scratch, the engineers of the company decided to resort to 3D scanning. They chose to use RangeVision PRO 2 M 3D scanner which makes it possible to obtain high-accurate data through the structured-light technology.

As the surface of the detail was glossy, the engineers covered it with a matte spray.  They also used AZURE BP-470 light filters as leverage to perform 3D scanning. Digitizing of the prop and subsequent mesh processing in RangeVision ScanCenter software resulted in obtaining file in .stl format which can be uploaded in any CAD-products to finalize.

DE-ENGINEERING company uses Catia software for computer-aided design. 3D scanning and post-processing of the obtained data took 1,5 hours. Reverse engineering in Catia software took 8 hours. The quality of the final 3D model was tested in Polyworks software.

This case study demonstrates the suitability of RangeVision 3D scanners for reverse engineering in CAD-software products for computer-aided design. The format of the obtained data makes it possible to import 3D scans in any CAD-product to finalize. 3D scanning through the help of RangeVision PRO 2M allows saving the time in generating a CAD-model from scratch since the obtained 3D scans are highly precise. The universal CAD-models are used in a wide range of production sectors.

You can watch the whole process of reverse engineering based on 3D scanning data through RangeVision PRO 2M in this review. The first part of the video looks at the 3D scanning process and mesh processing of the final 3D model in RangeVision ScanCenter software, the second one shows the СAD-model specification in Catia on its basis.

We are grateful to DE-Engineering for providing the information!