Delcam's CopyCAD Aids Large-Scale Reverse Engineering

July 23, 2002 - Johnson Atelier, one of America's leading schools for sculpture, uses a range of software, including Delcam's CopyCAD, PowerSHAPE and PowerMILL, to create sculptures that are frequently bigger than life from models one-fourth to one-tenth of the intended size of the finished piece. "These software packages let us do, in minutes, the scaling up work which used to take months," said Jon Lash, director of special projects, at Digital Atelier, the model- and pattern-making operation of the school. His organisation is always under time pressure as most sculpture is done on commissions. Jobs often start late but public unveilings are scheduled for fixed dates.

The Digital Atelier process starts with scanning and digitising the sculptor's model, usually with a 5-axis Scantek 3D laser machine from Scan Technology in Denmark. For very large models, Digital Atelier has a Faro Arm with a 3D laser scanning head. The output to CopyCAD is typically a file of 15 megabytes or larger containing 2 million to 3 million triangles.

"With CopyCAD, the final editing and take just a few minutes per file," said John Rannou, 3D design engineer for Digital Atelier. "CopyCAD is indispensable for scaling up, cleaning up and editing, while PowerSHAPE lets you create missing surfaces with completely realistic organic shapes that are highly exact dimensionally."

"We have found that CopyCAD can scale 50X, 100X, even 200X without losing detail," he continued. "It is also very good for non-symmetrical scaling. This lets us modify a surface just a little by stretching or compressing in one direction, while not allowing the others to move. CopyCAD also lets us slice the geometry at any angle, through any shape in the model. This means that we can really optimize the skeleton (the internal framework that ensures the sculpture is stable) and where it will go."

In sculpture, some undercuts are unavoidable so Johnson Atelier uses a state of the art 5-axis CNC router from Motion Master. "This is where PowerMILL offers major benefits for us," Mr. Rannou said. "Without its ability for 5-axis programming, we would have to make two, and possibly even three, set-ups to cut these models." That may sound simple but it isn't. "The second set-up has to be perfectly aligned with the first one," Mr. Rannou explained. "It used to take forever to get that right."

www.delcam.co.uk

www.delcam.com 

 

Sponsored Links

AnyDWG Offers DWG to PDF, DWG to DXF, PDF to DWG, DWG to JPG, PDF to DXF Converters

AutoDWG offers DWF to DWG, DWG to PDF , PDF to DWG, DWG to Flash Converters, DWG Viewer.

eCampus.com Get your stuff for College... Cheap! Textbooks, Greek Gear, DVD's, University Clothing, Computers and MORE!

Access Your PC from Anywhere Free Trial plus 10% Off!