Curvature Continuous Reverse Engineering
What is Reverse Engineering? In short, it involves inverted product development: analyzing an existing product to understand how it works, how it is made, and how the shape is defined.
When the production mold begins to show signs of wear, and the original 3D file is not available or incompatible, Reverse Engineering is the solution to generate new 3D files for the production of a new set of molds or other production tooling. This allows completely new products to be produced with the desired high quality.
Another common example is the production of classic car parts where no stock is available, the mold no longer exists, and they come from the pre-3D CAD era. Based on an original part, and if available, the old 2D CAD drawings, a perfect reproduction is created.
Exactly the same geometry is not always preferred: because the goal of Reverse Engineering often involves entirely new production tooling, it is also a perfect opportunity to apply product revisions, updates, and improvements.
We often receive this question too, for instance with the production company for the Flying Hook: a minimalist designer coathanger where the coats appear to be floating through the air. Small in size, but a beautiful example of precision reverse engineering.
To achieve a perfect reproduction, a 3D scan of the original product was made, and based on this data we accurately modeled the shapes of this design classic with SolidWorks. Naturally, with the highest quality ‘Curvature Continuous’ surfacing: a smooth change in the degree of curvature of a double curved surface. This sounds very technical and specialized, but it ensures the most beautiful progression of light reflections on the product: an effect that everyone experiences.
The end result is high quality 3D data, entirely optimized for creating new tooling, and ready for production of perfect new products.
