EnvisionTEC, a Detroit-based manufacturer of 3D printers and materials, supplies machinery and materials to a variety of industries, including automotive, aerospace, appliance, jewelry and life sciences.
With continuous advances in optical inspection technology yielding 3D scanners that are today capable of stunning speed and accuracy, a growing number of companies are including this technology in their first article inspection (FAI) procedures.
The term reverse engineering can be applied to a wide range of technologies, including disassembling computer code, genetic modification, and many more. For engineering applications, it is more usually thought of as the conversion of physical parts into digital models.
In conventional 3D scanning measurement methods the CMM performs all the movements necessary to acquire the surface data. Acceleration forces induce inertia deflections into the CMM 3d scanning frame structure, which in turn induce measurement errors.
Many new industries are employing 3D scanning not only to create 3D models of parts or products for reverse engineering but also to explore the composition and rapid production of ready-to-use parts via 3D printing.