Using Application Programming Interface to Integrate Reverse Engineering Methodologies into Solidworks

In this paper the authors present an application of Visual Basic Application Programming Interface (API) to develop numerical and procedural algorithm into CAD software. The paper focuses on Reverse Engineering embedded into Solidworks. In many RE applications there is the need to remodel the tessellated surface into an editable solid feature, to analyze it and to manipulate it. For this purpose they can be programmed numerical procedures which interact with native geometrical entities in order to improve the modelling capability using automation protocols. The presented example of API and Solidworks interaction is about the acquisition and processing of surfaces acquired by 3d laser scanner. The problem is to acquire the tessellated geometry, build up a parametric editable feature, perform topological analysis and manipulate more fragments to reconstruct an unique entity. The proposed methodology is based on the integration between native geometrical entities in Solidworks and advanced mathematics algorithms about nonlinear optimization. Both of them can be accessed and manipulated by the user using simple graphic windows. In the paper the authors describe how to implement the interaction among these entities, discussing the role of API focusing on limits and capabilities and presenting the proposed algorithms underling the critical points.