This paper deals with the integration of reverse engineering with CAM for duplicating an existing part without a CAD model quickly and accurately. Two commercial packages, SURFACER and SmartCAM, were selected as the software tools for reverse engineering and NC code generation respectively. By utilizing the open architecture environment provided by SURFACER, a machining-oriented feature model can be constructed during the model creation phase. This model consists of not only the part's geometric entities but also all the machining information required for toolpath generation. Upon a knowledge-based process planning, this machining-oriented feature model is converted into a process model, which will then be used to create a job file and a macro file, both in the SmartCAM format. The execution of these two files inside SmartCAM can automatically generate the toolpaths and NC codes required for part machining.
