VXmodel Tutorial - Scan-to-CAD 1

May 2017

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Introduction

This tutorial is intended for users who need to become familiar with VXmodel. It will guide you through
a Scan-to-CAD workflow by cleaning and aligning the mesh, then extracting required entities in order
to transfer to a CAD software.

Importing data file

Database associated with this tutorial can be downloaded directly from the Customer Center via the
online resources (Tools menu / tutorials). A direct link is also available from the learn panel of
VXelements home page.

Session file and CAD file can be found here after download: *\Downloads\Scan-to-CAD_Tutorial-
1.zip\_Dataset
*The sample data for this tutorial is provided by Creaform. It is the property of Creaform and is used for informational purpose only.

After completing the scan, click on Send to VXmodel . For this tutorial, the scan data has been
already transferred to the VXmodel node of VXmodel. As good practice, hide the Scan and
Positioning Targets node to avoid confusion in display.To do so, click on the eye icon to hide or show.

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What will this tutorial cover?

Step 1.
Best-fit alignment of the meshes.

Step 2.
Merge meshes together.

Step 3.
Extract entities for alignment.

Step 4.
Align the mesh to origin.

Step 5.
Create entities for reverse engineering.

Step 6.
Duplicate the middle section of the pipe and create a
new mesh.

Step 7.
Clean the mesh & fill holes.

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Step 8.
Fit boundary to curve and cut mesh.

Step 9.
Complete the inner surface and create the auto-
surface.

Step 10.
Export files for CAD software.

Step 11.
Inspect the reverse engineered part.

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Best Fit Alignment of Meshes

VXmodel allows the user to align two or more meshes together by best-fit. This operation is also useful
when you want to align different meshes of the same part and compare them together or, like the
example in this tutorial, to merge two meshes together.

Click on the mesh Scan-to-CAD Tutorial 1 Mesh 1 to see VXmodel functions.

Best-Fit Alignment

Click on the Best fit meshes button.

Set Maximum Distance to 1 mm, then click on
Pre-Align, to manually select 3 common points
on each mesh.

Note: As soon as 3 points are selected on each meshes, a preview of the alignment will appear on the
split screen left side.
Click on Align, look at the result and then Accept.
Click OK.

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Merge Meshes Together

Since the two meshes are aligned together it is now possible to merge the two meshes. This step is
necessary in order to have a complete mesh in order to extract all the entities for the reverse
engineering of this part.

Click on the mesh Scan-To-CAD Tutorial Mesh 1

to see VXmodel functions.

Click on the Merge button, check both meshes,

leave Max distance at 1 mm, adjust Smoothing
layers to 3 and leave Priority at Normal for both
meshes.

Click on Apply and look at the result then click OK.

Note: Once the merging is completed, a new Mesh is created in the Navigation tree under the
VXmodel node.

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Extract Entities for Alignment

Creating geometric entities based on the mesh will be used for alignment; therefore it is important to
choose the most relevant entities for the alignment.

Right-click on Merge 1 in order to rename it and

avoid possible confusion. Rename it to Scan-to-CAD
Tutorial 1 Merge.

Note: There are many different options in the contextual menu

(right-click). Meshes can be duplicated, which is useful when
editing it. It can serve as a reference the user can go back to.

Click on the eye icons to hide the Scan-to-CAD 1

Mesh 1 and Scan-to-CAD 1 Mesh 2.
Click on the mesh Scan-To-CAD Tutorial 1 Merge to
see VXmodel functions.

Add a Plane

Click on the Add a Plane button.

Set the Building Mode to Triangles Selection.

Select the Similar Normal button.

To select the surface where a plane will be gen-
erated, hold the CTRL key and left-click on the
flange.
Note: The new plane is displayed with a deviation color map
of the surface selected to the best fitted plane. The tolerance
of the color map can be edited in the Error Distribution
parameter.
Click on Create to finalize and then Close.

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Add Circles

Click on the Add a Circle button.

Set the Building Mode to Boundary Selection.
Choose the Existing Plane as the Constraining Plane
and select the Plane 1 in the drop-down menu.

Select the boundary where the circle should be gen-

erated.

Click on Create to finalize.

We will now generate a second circle using the con-
straining Plane 1.
Set the Building Mode to Triangles Selection and
choose Plane 1 for the Constraining plane.

Select the Similar Curvature button.

Change the Selection Tolerance to 40.

Hold the CTRL key and left-click to select the inner sur-
face of the following cylinder located on the bottom
flange.

Click Create to finalize then Close.

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Align the Mesh to Origin

Mesh Alignment
In this step, we will use the three generated entities, one plane and two circles, to align the surface to
the origin. Alignment is done by pairing entities previously created with the XYZ reference frame.

Click on Align to Origin button.

From the Constraint Selection menu, under the Con-
straint column, select Plane XY in the first drop-down
menu and pair it with Plane 1 under the Entity column.
Repeat to pair Origin XY with Circle 1 - Center, then Axis
Y with Circle 2 - Center.
Use the flip button to invert Plane 1 - Normal.

Note: On the right side of the Entity column, the flip button flips the
normal of paired entities.

Click Align to close the dialogue box.

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Create Entities for Reverse Engineering

Now that our surface is aligned to the origin, we can proceed with reverse engineering portions of the
pipe's surface. Various geometries will be extracted in preparation for the CAD software.

Add New Plane

Click on the Add a Plane button.

Set the Building Mode to Triangles Selection.

Select the Similar Normal button.

Hold the CTRL key and left-click to select the top
planar surfaces of the bottom flange (Plane 2) and
the plane that had been used for alignment (Plane
1).
Repeat these steps for the other flange (Planes 3 &
4), as well as the top surface of the extruded cylinder
near the top flange (Plane 5); five planes should be
created in total.
Note: Planes should be built on each side of both flanges, and
on top of the outside cylinder of the pipe.

Add New Cylinder

Click on the Add a Cylinder button.

Set the Building Mode to Triangles Selection.
Set to Orientation to Plane 1 - Normal to have the cyl-
inder axis parallel to the plane normal

Set the Selection Tolerance to 35.

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 Hold the CTRL key and left click to select the inner sur-
face of the following cylinder located on the bottom
flange.

Set the Length of the cylinder to 20 mm in the Para-

meters menu.
Check the box Keep constraints, filters and para-
meters in order to keep the same length for every
other cylinder that will have to be created.
Click Create to finalize.

Note: Cylinder length should be longer than the flange

thickness in order to use it as cutting tool in the CAD soft-
ware.
Repeat these steps for each hole on both flanges to
create Cylinders 2-8; also create cylinders on the inner
and outer surface of the cylinder located on the pipe
to create Cylinders 9 & 10.
Note : Cylinders orientation 4-8 should be set to Plane 3 -
Normal.
Note2: 10 cylinders should be created on the mesh.

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Create Cross-Section

Click on Add a Cross-section button.

Set the Building Mode to Linear. Select Plane 1 in Existing
Plane and put -5 mm to Offset. Set the Output Type to Curve
and Criteria to Deviation with a value of 0.1 mm.

Note: Make sure the position of the cross-section is in the middle of the
flange. If not, set a positive value for the position.

Click on Preview and then Create to finalize the cross-section.

Repeat these steps to create a cross-section on the other
flange, using Plane 3 as the existing plane this time.
Click Close to exit the function.

Note: One linear cross-section should be created on each flange.

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Create New Mesh from the Pipe Surface

In order to extract a CAD surface from the pipe surface, a new mesh will be created by selecting and
copying the pipe surface.

Copy the Selected Part

Select the Sudden Change button from the selection tools

and set the Selection Tolerance to 10.

Note: Depending on where the selection is made upon the first click, the global selection can differ
from the tutorial. Always look at your global selection prior of executing an function.

Select the mesh middle area, between the two flanges.

Use the Grow Selection button (about 4 times) from
the selection tools to make sure the desired area is com-
pletely selected.
Note: Only the surface of the pipe must be selected.

Click the Copy button from the main toolbar. A new mesh, Mesh 1, will be created in
the Navigation tree with the selection.
Click on the eye icon to hide the mesh Scan-to-CAD Tutorial 1 Merge and Entities
related.

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Clean the Mesh & Fill Holes

Fill Holes
Filling holes is mainly used with mesh preparation for surfacing or 3D printing.

Click on Scan-to-CAD Tutorial 1 Merge - Copy 1.

Select the Free Form and the Select Through but-
tons in the selection tools.

Select the exceeding edge near the hole. Hold Ctrl

and left-click over each corner.

Note: Unwanted data has been selected due to the Select Through button and has to be removed
from the selection.

Hold Ctrl + Shift button while selecting

and right-click to remove any unwanted
area that was previously selected.

Select the Brush Selection and Select

Through and clean the circular hole by
adjusting the size of the brush.

Clean the circular hole using the same tech-

nique.

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Delete selected, unwanted data around
each hole with the button.

Click the Fill Holes button.

Set Filling Method to Curvature. Set
Smooth boundary layers to 3 and leave
Clean Boundary unchecked. Select Whole
as Filling method.

Click on the 3 boundaries on the pipe sur-

face. Once selected, the boundary turns yel-
low and the hole is filled.

Click OK to close the function.

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Fit Boundary to Curve and Cut Mesh with Plane

The boundaries of both openings needs to be cleaned in order to create a clean surface. Two different
techniques will be used.

First Technique:
The Fit Boundary to Curve function allows rebuilding boundaries using curves that have been created
in the function.

Click the Fit Boundary to Curve button.

Select Whole , change Criteria to Control
point and enter the value 35. Enter 3 in Analysis
Layers.
Select the top opening boundary.

Click on Preview curve.

Click on Apply to accept the resulting curve.

Click on OK to exit the function.

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Second Technique:
The second technique uses Cut Mesh. This function allows cutting a mesh using a plane.

First, highlight and right click on Plane 2

under Entities in the Navigation tree.
Send Plane 2 from Scan-to-CAD Tutorial 1
Merge to Scan-to-CAD Tutorial 1 Merge -
Copy 1.

Click the Cut Mesh button.

Select Plane 2, set Plane Offset to 6 mm and
leave Keep both parts box unchecked.

Note: The boundary created with the Cut Mesh

function will be cleaned and all the data below the
selected offset plane will be permanently deleted.
Click Apply and then OK to close the func-
tion.

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Create Surface from Mesh with Auto-Surface

At this step, we will create the inner pipe surface. First, the two boundaries will be extended and then
the outer surface will be offset to replicate the pipe thickness. The Extrude boundary function
increases the length of the surface making sure the pipe, in this case, will be in contact with the flange.

First Step

Click Extrude Boundary button.

Select Plane 2, and make sure the
Fill boundary box is unchecked. Set
the Plane offset at -2 mm. Then
select the associated boundary on
the pipe.

Click Apply, and then OK

This operation needs to be repeated
with Plane 3 at the other boundary.

Note: Plane 3 must be sent to Scan-to-CAD Tutorial 1 Merge - Copy 1.

The Extrude boundary function might not create a smooth transition from the boundary selected.

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Second Step
To smooth the transition, the Defeature function can be used.
Select the Brush Selection and make a partial selection at the boundary by adjusting the size
of the brush
Click on the Defeature function to remove and fill the selected feature.
Repeat the operation 5-6 times to clean the boundary all around the pipe.

The Shell/Offset Mesh function will create the inner surface of the pipe.

Click Shell/Offset Mesh button.

Select Offset, and chose the Inside dir-
ection. In the parameters section,
check the Smooth Boundaries and
Keep Original Mesh boxes and enter 3
mm in the distance box.

VXmodel will now generate a new

mesh-Scan-to-CAD Tutorial 1 Merge -
Copy 1 - Shell/Offset mesh 1; this pro-
cess will take some time.
Click on Apply then OK to exit the func-
tion.

The inner surface has been created but the

normal of the surface should be flipped and fixed.

Click on the eye icon to hide Scan-to-CAD Tutorial 1 Merge - Copy 1 and click Scan-
to-CAD Tutorial 1 Merge - Copy 1 - Shell/Offset mesh 1
Click on Flip/Fix Normals button.
Select Flip Normals and click on the mesh surface to inverse the normal of all triangles
connected with the root vertex.

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 Optional: If needed, select Fix Normals and click on the mesh surface to harmonize the
normal of all triangles connected.

Before creating the auto-surface, combine the inner and outer pipe surfaces into a single mesh.

Click on the Combine button and

choose withScan-to-CAD Tutorial 1
Merge - Copy 1.
Click Apply then OK.
This will generate a new Entity called
Combine 1.

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Third Step: Create auto-surface from mesh
This function allows creating a surface with organized patch layout on the entire mesh or on specific
selected triangles. To avoid bad surface reconstruction, it is recommended to fix small irregularities of
the mesh with the Clean Mesh function.

Right Click on Combine 1 and choose Show

only selected

Click on Clean mesh function

Click on Apply then OK

Click on the Auto-Surface button.

Under the Selection menu, adjust the number
of patches to 4000 and the number of control
points to 12.

Click on the Preview button to validate the res-

ult.
Click on Create and then Close.

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Export Entities

At this step, the aligned mesh and the entities to use in the CAD software will be saved.

Save Mesh Model

Highlight the Scan-To-CAD Tutorial 1 Merge mesh

by clicking on it.
Right click on the mesh and chooseExport.

Note: The export button can also be used.

Export Entities
Export the entities in STP format to use in the CAD software:

Highlight the Entities node under Scan-To-CAD

Tutorial 1 Merge.
Then, click the Export button OR right click to
Export all entities.

Note: It is recommended to export entities grouped by type, i.e. export the planes together, the
cylinders together, etc.

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 Note: To export one or more entities, select only
the ones to be exported holding the CTRL button
before clicking Export Selected Entities.

The mesh and all entities exported are

now ready to be opened in CAD soft-
ware to do reverse engineering of the
part or for an inspection.

Export entities – SOLIDWORKS/Inventor/Solid Edge/VXinspect users

If you use SOLIDWORKS, Inventor or Solid Edge. VXmodel has a built-in CAD transferring function that
execute the previous steps of exportation directly to SOLIDWORKS, Inventor or Solid Edge.

Click on the Entities node or on specific

entities and click on Transfer All Entities
to SOLIDWORKS, Inventor, Solid Edge
button or Transfer Selected Entities to
SOLIDWORKS, Inventor or Solid Edge in
order to directly export those entities to
SOLIDWORKS, Inventor or Solid Edge
Right-click on selected entities and Trans-
fer Selected Entities to SOLIDWORKS,
Inventor or Solid Edge

Note: If SOLIDWORKS, Inventor, or Solid Edge are not open, the function will open it and create a new
part and import the entities. If SOLIDWORKS, Inventor, or Solid Edge are open, it will import, in the
active part, the entities.

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Inspect the Reverse Engineered Part

Once the solid part has been created in CAD software with the entities previously created, it is possible
to import the result to compare it with the mesh. To do this inspection, a color map will be created
between the imported CAD and the aligned mesh.

Best-Fit Alignment - CAD with Mesh

Click on Import and select CAD Model from the list.

Select the Scan-to-CAD Tutorial 1.step in the down-

load folder: *\Downloads\Scan-to-CAD_Tutorial-
1.zip\_Dataset
Click on Scan to-CAD Tutorial 1 Merge.

If the mesh if not align perfectly with the CAD model, click on Best
fit on CAD button to align the CAD with the mesh Scan to-
CAD Tutorial 1 Merge.

Set the Maximum Distance to 1 mm. Click on Pre-

Align, select at least 3 common points and look at the
result. Click Align.
Click Accept and then click OK.

Color map comparison - CAD with mesh

Click on Scan-to-CAD Tutorial 1 Merge Mesh.

Click on Compare button and select To CAD

Model.

Note: It is possible to compare the last operation to another mesh or a surface created with the auto-
surface function.

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 Click on the Flip button to inverse the Reference and the
Measured model and do an inspection of the reverse engin-
eered part.

Note: It is possible to change the color map tolerance and/or the options of the comparison.

You can add annotations by clicking on Start

adding 3D deviations annotations button.

Note: It is possible to export a snapshot with a right-click and choose Capture 3D Viewer Image.
Note: Right-click on a box to close one annotation or click Close annotation button if you want to
clear all annotations.

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