Reverse engineering is a process in which software, machines, aircraft, architectural structures, and other products are reconstructed to extract design information from them.
This process allows creating a 3D virtual model of an existing physical part for use in 3D CAD, CAM or other software. The physical object can be measured using 3D scanning technologies. Reverse engineering aims to recover the design intentions in terms of simple analytic surfaces where appropriate (planes, cylinders, etc.) to create a CAD model representing the boundaries. Recovering this model allows the design to be modified to meet new requirements.