Automatic Acquisition of Free Form Shapes by Integration of a 3D Vision System and a CMM

In recent years, various methodologies of reverse engineering have been proposed with the aim at creating CAD models from digitisation of target objects using optical sensors. The acquisition of 3D geometrical data includes crucial tasks, such as planning scanning strategies and aligning different point clouds, in particular when complex shapes are to be reconstructed. This paper describes a technology to acquire complex, free form surfaces by combining a 3D vision system and a Co-ordinate Measurement Machine (CMM) with 5 controlled axes. The aim is to create accurate digital representations of physical objects with complex shapes in a very short time by exploiting the advantages deriving from the combined use of a full field optical sensor and a CMM