Integrating Multiple Engineering Resources in a virtual environment for reverse engineering legacy mechanical parts

Reverse engineering is a time-consuming and technically formidable process that is increasingly becoming an economic imperative due to replacement costs. The Multiple Engineering Resources aGent Environment (MERGE) system, introduced in this paper, is a new approach toward reverse engineering whose architecture and modules are driven specifically by the requirements of legacy engineering. Legacy engineering scenarios presume availability of multiple (possibly incomplete or inconsistent) sources of information, lack of digital descriptions of the parts, constrained time restrictions and need for significant domain knowledge expertise. The reverse engineering process must yield modern CAD models capable of driving state-of-the art CAM processes. The MERGE system aims at making the reverse engineering process more effective, using both intuitive interaction and visualization as key components, by enabling quick identification and resolution of inconsistencies among various resources in a unified environment. The MERGE system also aims at simplifying the reverse engineering process by integrating various computational agents to assist the reverse engineer in processing information and in creating the desired CAD models.