Wrap-around B-spline Surface Fitting to Digitized Data With Applications to Reverse Engineering

The design of products containing sculptured surfaces typically begins with the crafting of a clay or wood model. The physical model must be reverse engineered to create a CAD representation. Three dimensional computer vision systems are currently being employed to digitize models in the first step of reverse engineering. In this paper, a three dimensional vision system that permits multiple viewpoint digitization is described. Furthermore, a new approach to modeling the data sets generated employing wrap-around B-spline surface patches is presented. The laser digitization and software modeling of bicycle seat and telephone handset models are presented.[S1087-1357(00)70102-X]