Create Models from 3D Scans

By DE Editors

ICEM Ltd. (Southampton, UK), developerof software for surface modeling, analysis and visualization, has begun shippingitsnew standalone software product for reverseengineering applications, ICEM RevEng.

Developed for those who don't need to create ClassA surface models but who do need a cost-effective way of creatingdigital surface models of existing, physical objects,ICEM RevEng enables users to efficiently handle 3D digitized dataimported as individual points from tactile measuring devices as pointclouds or facet data from laser scanners or from photogrammetrysystems. In addition to standard ASCII-based and STL formats,proprietary formats from individual scanner manufacturers are alsosupported, says the company.

Imported scan data can be displayed as rendered images and can beconverted to a surface model for further development and refinement, to providea quick way of having digital representations ofreal-world objects available on the computer for further processing.Scan data and surface data can also be used simultaneously, togetherwith ICEM's real-time rendering technology, to create photo-realisticvisualizations for early design review and packaging needs.

Scan creation and modification tools enable data missing from theoriginal scan to be added and for scan data to be filtered, edited, andmerged before surfacing, while additional surface creation tools enablefeatures such as flanges, fillets, profiles, and surfaces of revolutionto be added to the derived surface model.

In addition, ICEM RevEng provides facilities for interrogating thecreated surfaces in order to identify any deviation from the originalscan data. A colored contour plot shows the difference, inmillimeters, between nominal and actual values. Out of position andpartly scanned data can also rapidly be positioned using a registerfunction.

To enable scan data and the derived surface model to be developed incontext with related objects, ICEM RevEng enables CAD data from othersystems to be imported and displayed as a background reference. Inaddition to enabling new surface data to be aligned with existing CADdata, this facility also keeps the amount of live data to a minimumin order to improve performance.

The final surface model data generated with ICEM RevEng can be exportedto other vendors' engineering CAD systems via an industry-standard IGESor VDA interface, one of which, at the customer's choice, is includedas standard. ICEM RevEng exports data via additional-cost,direct interfaces to IBM/Dassault Systemes' CATIA V4 and V5; UGSI-deas, Unigraphics, and NX; or PTC's CADDS and Pro/E.


ICEM RevEng is priced at $18,400.