Faro Arm Reverse Engineering

[JHG1981]

Is there a scanning software anyone recommends for the Faro Arm?

I checked out Geomagic and its very impressive but very expensive

 

[MikeHalloran]

A long time ago, I bought a small, imprecise, unrepeatable, measuring arm, barely more than a toy, basically a waste of money.

It came with one copy of Rhinoceros, which was very useful for other things, and which I came to love for its own qualities. It's also reasonably priced.

Rhino was able to partially control the arm, as in getting it started, and accepting the data that the arm sent when the button was pressed.
AutoCAD can do the same thing, working interactively.

After the mind-numbing chore of manually scanning whatever you are trying to measure, you are left with a CAD file containing a bunch of three-point circles in 3D space, and a literal cloud of points, all of which are an approximation of the geometry of some object.

Neither AutoCAD nor Rhinoceros is capable (when last I checked) of turning a point cloud into something useful, all by itself. I am not aware of any free software that does that job.

In my case, Geomagic wouldn't have helped, because of uncertainties in the data, so I ended up putting all the scanned data into a layer by itself, and building a model from scratch, snapping what I could to the occasional point. With a Faro arm, it may work for you.

On the other hand, I'd recommend trying to use the arm on a real job, with just a regular CAD program accepting input, to get a feel for whether the whole arm exercise is worth the effort required, vs. just measuring your object on a surface plate with more traditional tools.

My personal opinion is that measuring arms and other CMMs don't generally provide a speed advantage. YMMV.




Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[JNieman]

Articulated Arm CMMs and software (including Autodesk) has come a very, very, very long way since your last experience @MikeHalloran. Autodesk has been acquiring a lot of other companies though. Their point cloud technology is intended to serve both surveying and modern manufacturing practices. Very different applications but somewhat similar data analysis.

Preferable software, though... I'm not a fan of PC-DMIS. I have not used Verisurf for reverse engineering specifically but I admire their software. They'd be the ones I checked with first, for a demo, and then comparing others to, likely.

 

[JHG1981]

Thanks Guys, I will check out Rhino, Verisurf, and PolyWorks Modeler

 

[JNieman]

I've heard positive things about PolyWorks from some other companies we're friendly with but I believe it was only automated CMM inspection and data analysis. I don't recall a word about reverse engineering, but they spoke well of the software in general and its development and support.

 

[Tarator]

You can also check GOM Inspect

 

[geesamand]

Do you want to scan or reverse engineer?

What accuracy is required?

Reverse engineer means to take the scan of a cylinder and make it into a cylinder feature with a specific diameter and length. Good results almost always involve the human element.