Wrap-around B-spline surface fitting to digitized data with applications to reverse engineering

The design of products containing sculptured surfaces typically begins with the crafting of a clay or wood model. The physical model must be reverse engineered to create a CAD representation. Three dimensional computer vision systems are currently being employed to digitize models in the first step of reverse engineering. In this paper a three dimensional vision system that permits multiple viewpoint digitization is described Furthermore, a new approach to modeling the data sets generated employing wrap-around B-spline surface parches is presented The laser digitization and software modeling of bicycle seat and telephone handset models are presented.