CGI's Reverse RP Machine

Counterintuitive as it may sound, Capture Geometry Internally, or CGI (www.cgiinspection.com), makes “reverse rapid prototyping” machines. The company’s new platform, the Pearl-700, deconstructs plastic injection parts, layer by exceedingly thin layer (0.001 to 0.002 in.), to generate measurements, inside and out.

The process begins by submerging the part in the company’s “Encase-It” resin. Once the part is covered and filled with the resin, it is then placed inside the Pearl-700. As the machine slices off a thin layer of the part, a camera snaps high-resolution images of the exposed cross-sections. Layer by layer, the parts are constructed in a 3D point cloud model to ensure quality and validate parts specifications. The $49,900-device claims an accuracy of 20 microns for a sacrificed part.