Showcasing the Potential of Reverse Engineering

Greenery 33 is a company in Cincinnati, Ohio that produces creative and unique plant holders and pots. The company donates 33% of their earnings to environmental protection agencies. One of Exact’s engineers is friendly with Greenery 33’s owner, so Exact Metrology participated in a marketing campaign aimed to show the process of reverse engineering and how it can be used with various materials.

The first step was to scan and have a digital copy of a physical skull. Secondly, the skull was reverse-engineered using Geomagic DesignX software and NURBS. Geomagic is a leading provider of 3D software to create digital models of physical objects for industries such as archaeology, aerospace, medical and dental, tooling, foundry and sculpture, and arts. The Geomagic Design X combines history-based CAD with 3D scan data processing, enabling users to create feature-based, editable solid models compatible with existing CAD software. NURBS or Non-Uniform Rational B-spline is used to represent curves and surfaces. Next, surface analysis is performed with Geomagic Design X for parametric modeling. Afterward, NURBS is inspected with a color map against the scanned data of Geomagic. Lastly, .stl files rendered in Keyshot 3D of the skull are placed in product shots for Greenery 33.

This process took two days. By using reverse engineering, Exact Metrology showed Greenery 33 an efficient and cost-saving way of working with materials like plastic, glass, and ceramic without physically reconstructing it.