Reverse engineering vs. designing from scratch: which do you need?

Clients often ask whether they need reverse engineering or a fresh CAD design. The answer comes down to one question: do you have a physical reference part?

You have a physical part you want to replicate, modify, or archive. Reverse engineering is usually faster and cheaper here because we capture the existing geometry directly by scanning at up to 0.04 mm, then rebuild it as a clean parametric model. It's ideal for obsolete components, replacement parts, quality control, and digital archiving.

You have a concept, a sketch, or a set of requirements but no physical reference. Our engineers model it from the ground up in SolidWorks or Fusion 360, designing for your chosen manufacturing method — draft angles for injection molding, wall thicknesses for printing, tolerances for assembly.

Many product-development projects use both. We reverse engineer an existing reference to understand fit and packaging, then design new parts around it from scratch. Because scanning, reverse engineering, CAD, and 3D printing all happen under one roof at IJK Labs, moving between the two is seamless — and you deal with a single team from first scan to finished prototype.