Reverse Engineering

The clue is within the name in relation to reverse engineering. It's a procedure for discovering the engineering rules and mechanics of an apparatus or item through looking at the structure, performance and operations.

Generally reverse engineering consists of scanning a product so as to create a great 3d duplication. Therefore, 3-d scanning technologies also come in to play, it may comprise both white light scanners, 3d scanners and CMMs.

Quite simply a product or gadget is taken and stripped down layer by layer with each layer being analysed before the complete processes and function of the unit is known. By doing this an item could be remade or perhaps the original could be enhanced.

The process of reverse engineering has been utilized a lot inside the military services. 1 of these illustrations could be thedesign of the jerry can. Throughout the Second World War the British army noticed that the German’s jerry cans were of a better design and build than their own. Therefore, they capturedone or two and put to use reverse engineering to uncover the way they worked etc.

As jerry cans were actually a German innovation called Wehrmachtskanister, the English name ‘jerry can’ occurred given that they were thieved from Jerrys (Germans).

There are numerous explanations why reverse engineering is a good idea. These include product analysis, digital correction, military surveillance as well as forlearning functions. By working backwards you can easliy observe how a product worked when completed and after that go backwards to work out how this comes about, rather than the common route of beginning from nothing and working up.

White light scanning - An Introduction

White light scanning, or else known as WLS, is a technique used to accurately measure physical objects which would be unable to be measured through more traditional methods e.g. a plane part, a tomb or a face.

Once the object has been scanned a completely accurate 3d image is then produced which measures every single tiny bit of the objects surface area.
For example, if a piece of paper was scanned, something you think is extremely flat and smooth; it would be able to show you all the teeny tiny bumps and ridges along the surface.

You would think thatthis kind of machine would need to be huge in order to scan things such as tombs but this isn’t true.White light scanning machines are actually rather small. This is becausethey need to betransported to various locations and often moved around static objects in order to scan every inch of the item.

Some of the uses of white light scanners are actually very serious. For example if a plane crashes or malfunctions due to an element of its structure breaking or a bird flying into the engine, a scanner can reproduce an exact copy of the dimensions of the original piece. The same can be applied to the racing car sector. When items are moving so quickly and everything depends on how aerodynamic they are this is very important.

As you can see, white light scanning is a very interesting topic and has allowed us to perfectly measure an amazing amount of otherwise immeasurable, opening the way to a whole list of potential ideas and developments.