What is Reverse Engineering – Reverse Engineering Definitions, Purposes, Process & Steps | CNCLATHING

Why do we use reverse engineering? Reverse engineering is performed in various fields based on many reasons, it originates from the analysis of hardware for commercial or military interests. Reverse engineering often used in maintenance or making a new device or program that does the same thing without copying anything from the original. Reverse engineering is carried out under circumstances like lost documentation, product analysis, security auditing, removal of copy protection, and more. Its main purpose is to deduce the design principle of the product directly from the analysis of the finished product without easily obtaining the necessary production information. Some common uses of reverse engineering:

– Software reverse engineering: the design information of software may lose over time, reverse engineering can recover the lost information and reduce the time to understand the source code. Even if the functional old parts of computer equipment have been lost, reverse engineering allows technicians to rediscover these formulas and bring them up to date. 

– Military or commercial espionage: use reverse engineering to learn about the enemy’s latest research and dismantling it to develop a similar or better product. 

– OEM: if the original equipment manufacturer lost the design measurement of the product, reverse engineering can be applied to analyze the vital product information to assist the manufacturing. 

– Additive manufacturing: a 3D product can be captured in digital form and remodeled to improve the iterations. 

– Cultural relics protection: Museum pieces and historic artifacts can be captured through 3D scanning and use reverse engineering to save the CAD data in case of any future damage to the object. 

– Competitor analysis: analyze the products of competitors.

– Product security: examines how a product works and identifies the potential patent infringement. 

– 3D model: create a 3D virtual model of an existing physical part for use in CAD, CAM, CAD, or other software, which can offer the exact design for CNC machining parts. Reverse engineering can extract the design of the product. 

– File loss: reverse engineering is often adopted when the file of special equipment has been lost and the person in charge of the project cannot be found. The complete system often needs to be redesigned based on the old system, which means that the only way to integrate the original functions for the project is to use the reverse engineering method to analyze the existing fragments for the redesign.

– Discontinued products: if the old products lost their paper blueprints, reverse engineering can help companies regain the lost designs and create the archives of the product legacy. Or if the products have not been manufactured for a long time, you can’t get in touch with the original manufacturer, reverse engineering may be the only way to obtain the design of the product.