Integrated product and tooling development via reverse engineering methodologies and rapid prototyping techniques
José M. G. Carvalho Ferreira, Artur J. Santos Mateus, Nuno M. Fernandes Alves, Pedro M. C. Custódio
Abstract
The engineering design supported by computer aided design and computer aided engineering (CAD / CAE) allows optimising the product concept before manufacturing with assistance of computer aided machining (CAM), in management for rapid product development. For some product development processes the reverse engineering (RE) allows to generate surface models from points cloud captured by 3D-scanning technique, and consequently this methodology permits to manufacture parts and tools in a short development period. In this research and development (R&D) work are presented some methodologies and technologies for rapid product development, i.e., by reverse engineering to reconstruct geometric models for CAD software assisted by CAE and rapid prototyping (RP) techniques to manufacture prototypes and tooling, to simulate optimise and validate the processes.