From Scan to CAD, QUICKSURFACE Helps Revolutionize the Manufacturing of Automotive Parts

Since its founding over 30 years ago, Philadelphia Racing Products (PRP) has not only grown substantially but also diversified its product offerings. As a leading automotive parts manufacturer, PRP designs and manufactures high-performance racing parts and operates a custom work division to meet increasing customer demands.

PRP’s Co-Owner and CEO, Richard Schonberger, recognized that improving efficiency, particularly in product design workflows, was critical for scaling operations.

Schonberger explained, “For our reverse engineering projects, our engineering team used to take part measurements by hand with tools such as calipers, micrometers, height gauges, and gauge blocks. Then, they verified the measurements by printing out paper templates. This method was both a time-consuming and tedious process. To keep up with the growing demands from our customers, we need to find a better solution.”

About Philadelphia Racing Products

Founded in 1991 by Julius John Schonberger III, PRP has built its legacy on innovation in high-performance aftermarket automotive parts. Originally focused on selling ready-made parts, the company shifted to designing and manufacturing bespoke components to address the needs of the performance racing community.

Today, PRP operates a thriving performance engine division alongside its racing parts manufacturing facility. The founder’s sons, Richard and Jay Schonberger, have continued their father’s vision, ensuring PRP remains at the forefront of the industry.

Scan to CAD Enhances Workflow Efficiency

PRP balances its design work between reverse engineering pre-existing parts and creating new products for mating assemblies. However, the traditional methods for reverse engineering—relying on manual tools and verification—proved inefficient and prone to error, particularly for complex components requiring precise clearances and accurate fitment.

Richard Schonberger

“Nowadays, whenever the subject of reverse engineering or design is brought up, you’re more than likely to talk about 3D scanning as well,” said Schonberger. “Exploring the Scan to CAD approach for product design and development seemed like a promising route for our business to scale.”

By adopting a 3D scanner, PRP could capture millions of surface measurements and import the resulting mesh data into reverse engineering software. The team sought a solution that would seamlessly bridge its scanning technology with its preferred CAD platform, SOLIDWORKS.

After consulting with GoMeasure3D, PRP implemented QUICKSURFACE for SOLIDWORKS (known as Mesh2Surface), a powerful Scan to CAD plugin. The solution was demonstrated live, and its benefits quickly won over the PRP team.

Chase Evans

“Some designers and engineers prefer standalone reverse engineering software. However, as an experienced SOLIDWORKS user, I found it more practical to perform reverse engineering all within one CAD software package. QUICKSURFACE as a plugin works perfectly well with SOLIDWORKS by allowing me to access a comprehensive set of advanced reverse engineering tools. With this seamless integration, I can fully harness the potential of both platforms, significantly enhancing my product design and development workflow in multiple ways,” said Chase Evans, PRP’s Lead Engineer.

QUICKSURFACE Features That Empower PRP

The PRP team outlined the features of QUICKSURFACE for SOLIDWORKS that significantly enhanced their reverse engineering capabilities:

• Accurate fitting algorithms.
• Easy extraction of primitives, planes, and cylinders.
• More efficient and manageable reverse engineering processes.
• Visualization of percentage points within tolerance to ensure accuracy against the reference mesh.
• Alignment tools for precise mesh positioning.
• Capability to extract multiple cross-sections and use the “Fit Sketch Entities” tool to map them to SOLIDWORKS sketches.
• Seamless reverse engineering of 3D meshes within assemblies.

Guy Porter

Guy Porter, PRP’s Design Engineer, added, “Heading the design of new products, I believe that simplicity, precision, and innovation are at the core of design and development. QUICKSURFACE’s utility provides sustainable accuracy in our designs and has a dramatic impact on the efficiency of our workflow.”

Key Benefits of QUICKSURFACE Software

• Extensive Data Capture: Efficiently collects detailed measurements during scanning, enabling more accurate and flexible design changes later.
• High-Quality Data Management: Handles large volumes of data seamlessly without compromising on accuracy or performance.
• Reduced Human Error: Automates complex tasks, minimizing the risk of errors in the reverse engineering process.
• Optimized Workflow: Streamlines reverse engineering and design processes for faster, more precise results.
• Ongoing Support: The QUICKSURFACE team provides continuous support to ensure users maximize the software’s potential.

Improved Efficiency, Usability, and Productivity

By adopting QUICKSURFACE for SOLIDWORKS, PRP has achieved significant improvements in its product design and development process.

“QUICKSURFACE for SOLIDWORKS significantly improves our design and product development workflow, particularly in terms of accuracy and efficiency. Thanks to this Scan to CAD solution, we now have more time to focus on our core designs and create the best high-performance automotive racing products for our valued customers,” said Schonberger.

Evans noted, “QUICKSURFACE has been instrumental in helping our team overcome many challenges. Previously, we had to first model the existing component before we could even create the mating part, which ultimately is the product we want to design and manufacture.”

PRP now designs better products and fully trusts the measurements captured by its 3D scanner, reducing design time by approximately 25%.

Additionally, PRP praised the responsiveness of the QUICKSURFACE team. Evans shared, “The ability to interface closely with the product development team at QUICKSURFACE is great. I once gave my feedback on a new feature I thought would be useful. The following week I downloaded an updated version of the software, and it was right there.”

The PRP team also emphasized the value of QUICKSURFACE, with Evans stating, “We get a lot of functionality for the price. Our team particularly appreciates the simplicity of QUICKSURFACE – it gets the job done without the complexity.”

Conclusion

By integrating QUICKSURFACE for SOLIDWORKS into its workflow, Philadelphia Racing Products has revolutionized its design process. The move to a 3D Scan to CAD approach has not only improved efficiency and accuracy but also enabled PRP to tackle increasingly complex projects and deliver superior products.

“We’ve successfully transformed our product design process through 3D digitization, allowing us to streamline our workflow instead of relying on conventional manual methods as we did before. We’re excited to further expand our operations with this overhaul of our reverse engineering design workflow. Now, we can handle more projects, serve new clients, and tackle extremely complex design tasks,” said Schonberger.

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