In-line monitoring and reverse 3D model reconstruction in additive manufacturing

Additive manufacturing allows for close-to unrestrained geometrical freedom in part design. The ability to manufacture geometries of such complexity is however limited by the fact that it proves difficult to verify tolerances of these parts. Tolerancs of featuress that are inaccessible with traditional measuring equipment such as Coordinate Measurement Machines (CMM's) can not easily be verified. This paradox is addresses by the proposal of an in-line reverse engineering and 3D reconstruction method that alows for a true to scale reconstruction of a part that is being additivelymanufactures on 3D printing (3DP), or Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) equipment. The system will be implemented and tested on a 3DP machine with modifications developed at the author's university.