Scan to CAD: the Ducati V4 brake cooling inlet
How the wireframe on the homepage got there. Reverse engineering a fairing surface into a printable part, and what actually matters when the part has to survive a track day.
The part spinning on the homepage is a real one: a brake cooling inlet for a Panigale V4. There is no drawing for the fairing it mounts to, so the job starts with capturing the surface, not designing the part.
Capture
I take the reference geometry from the bike itself: the fairing surface around the fork leg, the caliper position, and the clearance envelope at full lock and full compression. The scan only has to be good where the part touches something. Everywhere else, a clean surface I model myself beats a noisy one I traced.
Model
The inlet is built as a swept duct from the mouth to the caliper, then the mounting flange is offset from the captured fairing surface so it sits flush. Wall thickness is uniform so it prints without warping, and the mouth has a lip so the leading edge does not peel in the airstream.
- Design the mating surface from the scan; design everything else from intent.
- Put the split line where the printer can reach it, not where it looks tidy.
- Fillet the inside of the duct. Sharp turns are where the flow separates and where the print cracks.
Prove
First print in PETG to check fit on the bike, then the real one in a higher temperature material for the season. The check is a track session with the RaceBox logging: if the part stays put through the fast sections and the fit is still clean after the session, it ships. That data is the same data behind the Corner IQ demo.
The homepage animation is the actual STL, reduced to feature edges and section rings so it draws fast in a browser. Same file, no artist's rendition.