ReverseEngineering.com releases 2023 Fusion 360 Faro and Romer Arms Add-in.
The best way to model an existing complex part is to capture it with some sort of measuring device. Taking measurements with a scale or a caliper will take too long. After reading about How to Use the Laser Scanner in Your Pocket, you might be tempted to use your iPhone, which has a LiDAR built in. But you will find its accuracy wanting, as happened here: 3D Scanning for Everyone? Not Yet.
For those who must have submillimeter accuracy, there is still no substitute for professional measuring software, equipment … and time. For ReverseEngineering.com, a professional engineering service that specializes in reverse engineering and also sells software that does the same, this can be done with a Romer portable coordinate measuring machine (PCMM) and, with the help of its smart interface, be brought into Autodesk Fusion 360.
ReverseEngineering.com has created a Fusion 360 add-in for this purpose.
Made to be run by an engineer or on the shop floor, the add-in ensures that measurements taken with a Faro and Romer arm are fed into CAD software without the need for specialized scanning software.
How Does it Work?
Here’s how ReverseEngineering.com’s Fusion 360 add-in works. The user starts Fusion 360 with a CMM probe attached. They start a command to make a 2D or 3D shape—whether it be a line, arc, circle, extrusion, etc.—but instead of entering points by hand, they get a point from the CMM probe.
Reverse engineering has created a smart interface that understands the exact position of the probe (to the ten thousands of an inch) in 3D space. Knowing the probe has a ball probe at the end of a spring-loaded extension, the add-in arrives at a point with pinpoint accuracy.
Still measurements can be off, given movement, a probe ball diameter that is too big to get into corners, one that is too small so it falls into surface irregularities, faulty calibrations and temperatures, surface irregularities and user error, among other factors. The interface understands. For example, in modeling a cylinder, the diameter is obtained by doing a best fit through multiple points.
The coordinates of the probe’s position show up in the interface in real time and there is no noticeable lag between the position of the moving probe and the coordinate readout in the demo on ReverseEngineering.com’s website.
In addition to helping reverse engineering prismatic parts, ReverseEngineering.com software can also duplicate organic shapes by recording points that will form a mesh and provide tools to clean up the mesh and convert it to solids.
ReverseEngineering.com software can also be used independently, without the CAD software present.
About ReverseEngineering.com
ReverseEngineering.com was founded in 1995, is led by CEO Braxton Carter and is based in La Jolla, Calif. (near San Diego).
