Reverse Engineering from a Picture in SOLIDWORKS

Learn the step-by-step process for reverse engineering an object in SOLIDWORKS, using sketch pictures, splines, combine features, and more!
Join Alexander as he reverse engineers a pedal from his simulation racing pedal set.
0:00 Intro
1:04 Step 1: Taking pictures of the object
3:27 Step 2: Importing profile images into SOLIDWORKS
7:41 Step 3: Tracing, extruding, and combining the profiles
11:13 Step 4: Adding additional details and features
15:39 Step 5: 3D printing the completed model
Additional resource: SOLIDWORKS Spline Basics • SolidWorks Spline Basics
For more information on SOLIDWORKS: hawkridgesys.com/solidworks
Technical Support Knowledgebase: support.hawkridgesys.com/

[@lukegiduz7040]

Great video. Another photography tip: instead of holding the camera close to fill up the frame, stand far back and zoom in. This reduces perspective distortion and gives a closer result to orthographic.

[@HaloWolf102]

I concur with this statement. As you scale up a sphere, the rounded edges become almost linear. So the farther away you are, the less the 'fish-eye leans' distorts your image. There are perspective to orthographic tools inside various image editing software. As well as 3D editing software. If you have one of those, I would check if they have that feature.

[@williamhoward7121]

An easy way to think of this from a photographic standpoint would be using a fisheye lens. It has an extremely curved glass lens which results in extreme distortion. Using a 35 to 50mm Will give you better perspective but as you near the object the curvature of these lenses also will distort. I've never gotten it to work properly but it seems a photocopy image would be the closest to a flat surface but there you run into a tremendous waste of ink to try to make this work. So photo taken with a 50 mm lens at about 2 ft to 3 ft above the image would give you the flattest surface without too much graininess once it's cropped.

[@MrSyNRG]

Also: Scanner! If you can put your object on a scanner it does a pretty good job too.

[@williamhoward7121]

This is the best video I've been able to find on the internet to explain this process in SolidWorks. Thanks so much for the effort!

[@derekv2101]

Great video Alexander, keep them coming.

[@HaidarHasani]

very good tutorial, hope to see more like it

[@muhammadsalah3212]

This tutorial deserves one million likes. Thanks bro

[@nameismetatoo4591]

I had to reverse engineer a chassis for an RC car a couple years ago. The shape was pretty difficult to model off of a photo because the curves obscured the edges of the cross-section. I came up with a solution that worked pretty well and made each profile sketch much easier. What I did was I used my green 100mW laser and unfocused it so that it projected a circle of light on the wall a couple feet in diameter. I then placed the chassis so that the side I wanted to project was facing the laser, and I made sure the laser was as normal to the center of the cross-section as possible. I then took photos and measurements of the chassis' projection on the wall, scaling them down to accommodate for beam spread. It may have been an unconventional approach, but it worked. The high contrast of the projected shadow was much much easier to measure. There were some distortions of course, but those were easy to manually fix. For a more robust setup, the laser could be set up much further away from the subject and, by using a collimating lens and a wider beam, could eliminate nearly all distortion in the projection.

[@hawkridgesystems]

Very interesting! Thanks for sharing

[@user-mr3rz4ul7d]

it would be cool to see that on here. seems interesting

[@ruuman]

Great video, thanks

[@cet96881]

Thank you!

[@amirdn3952]

THANK YOU SO MUCH

[@monsterjesse]

that was really good😀

[@yassersaeed827]

great video

[@sharon3420]

Thanks a lot.

[@Rycamcam]

Thanks, great tutorial! Would you upload the pictures of the pedal that you used to trace? It would be super helpful if we could follow along this tutorial using those images

[@toroddlnning6806]

you can double click the imported sketch image to rescale it later

[@kandasamyrajan]

In this model analytical tool also gives a good result. Could you explain why spline is used ? I prefer analytical tool because it gives smooth result.

[@GeorgeLenoHolmesJr]

Thank you for the video. The cursor does not change to select the end point of the 'scale tool' line (SW 2019), is there a trick to this? 4:48

[@fxsrider]

That was pretty kick ass! How long did that actually take?

[@nvrfollowb5]

what is the command to free rotate the part on plane when scaling?

[@AlbatroZzDIY]

Hi that is very good tutorial and i found out that your voice pronounce it at a slow pace and makes me easy to understand as newbie (english is not my native) that is why i subscribe. can you do a favor by post the pictures file you use to reverse engineer so i can also practice using the same pictures. TIA Janssen

[@BovoM8]

this is a great tutorial but the item im trying to recreate is very tall and my dimensions end up very off

[@richardcruz1052]

sir in soliddrawing how to reverse in solidworks TIA

[@noznip2008]

Hat off to you Alexander. I enjoyed the video, but the last parts where way to fast to even stop and understand more the underlying operations.

[@dariusAJM]

Hi all. Awesome Tutorial, however I am having an issue...The scale tool shows up on the drawing but I can't seem to select it and do anything with it. Whenever I try to select the Scale Tool to do anything with it just ends up selecting and moving the whole picture. It's probably something simple where I'll end up in a Homer Simpson "Dohh!!" moment. Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

[@tazztone]

can't this be done by photogrammetry software? just feed it a bunch of pictures from 360° around the part and it spits out a 3d file?

[@LarrySptz]

Have you do this?

[@garetz2011]

Pictures for raster images must be taken from the longest possible distance, doing so, the difference between hypotenuse and adjacent will be minimal. (I am too old/stupid for solidworks, everytime time I try to use it I end up feeling bad, sad, stupid and miserable).

[@MartinoPolizzi]

I got this problem using this method. When I imported the picture and calibrated it , not all the measurements were the same. So you suggest to shot the pictures from a longer distance than doing a close up to avoid perspective deformation?

[@garetz2011]

@@MartinoPolizzi Yes. It makes sense for me. I compared 25 mm with 14x25 mm. I would love to try a Nikon P900 or P1000 but I can't get one. Some lenses have more or less "barrel effect" and probably the best ones are too expensive.

[@MartinoPolizzi]

Thanks a lot, I just got my phone so I'll try to shoot the picture as far as possible

[@donavanreed5137]

This feature of SolidWorks should only be used for 2D, Perspective is the problem. DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME