National handcrafts are well-known at home and Abroad for their fine ingredients, exquisite blending of colors, and excellent skilled shaping and painting. What is more, they have great value and are deeply popular with people around the world. National handcrafts, as a cultural crystallization,
must be protected. In order to better realize the protection, we try to apply the technology of reverse engineering to the protection. This article mainly takes a handcraft, Yan Zi YU (meaning “swallow fish”), as an example to expound and demonstrate the process of reverse engineering
technology. During this process, by using scanning technology of reverse engineering, the collection and splicing of the point cloud data, the theoretical analysis of the NURBS surface in the reconstruction phase, and other practical operations in other stages, reverse engineering can be used
to regenerate 3D modal data of the swallow fish and to inspect and analyse the errors in it through Geomagic Quality to ensure that the new model meets the precision requirements. Therefore, the reverse engineering technology can be completely applied to the protection of national handcrafts
so that they can fully demonstrate their own value and function. If the precision of reverse engineering detection can reach nanometric level, a breakthrough will promote the protection of cultural relics.
