Reverse engineering physical models employing a sensor integration between 3D stereo detection and contact digitisation

A vision-driven automatic digitisation process for free-form surface reconstruction has been developed, with a coordinate measurement machine (CMM) equipped with a touch-triggered probe and a CCD camera, in reverse engineering physical models. The process integrates 3D stereo detection, data filtering, Delaunay Triangulation, adaptive surface digitisation into a single process of surface reconstruction. By using this innovative approach, surface reconstruction can be implemented automatically and accurately. Least-squares B-spline surface models with the controlled accuracy of digitisation can be generated for further application in product design and manufacturing processes. One industrial application indicates that this approach is feasible, and the processing time required in reverse engineering process can be significantly reduced up to more than 85%.